


Spring Haze

by caseyvalhalla



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/F, Found Family, Gender Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mild Language, Other, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-28 19:06:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 76,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3866374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caseyvalhalla/pseuds/caseyvalhalla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leorio wakes up in the back of a pickup truck in an RV park in the middle of nowhere, with no memory of how he got there.  He accidentally befriends a peculiar shut-in and a pair of runaways, but the more his attempts to get home are thwarted, the less all of this seems like a simple coincidence.  A strange modern fairy tale AU about the family you choose.</p>
<p>Leopika (feat. Trans!Leorio) + cute but (for now) platonic Killugon</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This may be the strangest thing I've ever written. It also may yet be one of the longest. I have about 40k already composed, and I anticipate topping 100k before this is finished.
> 
> Rated M as the understood universal indicator of Yes They Will Bang (later).
> 
> I'm not sure how else to preface this except: enjoy your slow burn leopika.

 

>   _well I know it's just a spring haze_  
>  _but I don't much like the look of it_  
>  _and if omens are a godsend like men_  
>  _breezing in_

* * *

Leorio wasn’t sure at first what he was looking at, let alone whether the person who stepped barefoot out of the massive silver bullet of a caravan was male, female, or some divine higher being that had transcended the boundaries of the gender binary.  Leorio could be forgiven, being chilled, hungover, and barely awake in the cold hour after dawn, as well as being limited in his view of the world by a hopelessly smudged pair of silver-rimmed glasses that sat precariously askew on his nose.  And furthermore, highly distracted by the fact that whoever emerged from the metal monstrosity was wearing nothing but an oversized blue and red plaid flannel shirt, which managed to hide everything of any importance neatly while simultaneously displaying the longest, shapeliest legs he’d ever had the courtesy of seeing in the flesh, even at a safe distance.

So distracted that the owner of the legs in question had minced along the edges of the gravel drive nearly all the way to the water spigot with a gallon jug in one hand before Leorio realized they were carrying anything.  Or that their hands were as lithe and willowy as their legs, or that they were blond--quite effectively blond in a cut that was short but not short enough that Leorio could see their face past it, when all of their attention was on the ground to avoid stepping on anything unpleasant.

He didn’t think he’d made any noise, or said anything--he was thinking something along the lines of _heeeeeeeeeey_ but was reasonably certain the thought hadn’t connected with his mouth--but once the jug was full, the blond’s back straightened abruptly, and they looked directly at Leorio.

To his credit, cocooning himself in a sleeping bag and crashing propped halfway up in a corner of the bed of a pickup truck had seemed like a great idea at two AM with a bottle of vodka sloshing around in his brain, but in the light (and bitter cold) of day he realized how very wrong he was, and so did his neck and back and various other profoundly uncomfortable body parts.  Regardless, Drunk Leorio’s questionable life choices had led him to this moment, when Sober Hungover Leorio found himself half-awake with his head pillowed on the ledge of a truck bed staring at a blond with a classically cute face (which incidentally didn’t help with the whole gender identity thing at all) and fantastic legs and an expression of what, Leorio was fairly certain, could only be described as abject horror.

His suspicions were confirmed when the blond made a sound that was mostly a cut-off shriek and shot back into the caravan fast enough that Leorio had to blink the afterburn out of his eyes.

In the absence of any kind of audience, clear enough when the camper's door swung shut with a bang, Leorio considered his own surroundings, bleary-eyed and stiff-necked.  A few shifting movements within the awkwardly tight confines of the sleeping bag assured him that Drunk Leorio decided to strip before sleeping (and yet left his glasses on, because common sense was not a thing he possessed), and once he wriggled free he saw what remained of his clothes in a crumpled pile alongside a discarded cell phone and a briefcase.  He lifted up the slacks gingerly, frowned at the wrinkles, and began the long and arduous process of trying to figure out where the hell he was.

It was cold enough that his skin prickled when he emerged fully from the cocoon, in nothing but boxers and a tank binder that his armpits and ribcage were protesting against, loudly; but the sun was still low and something heavy lingered in the air suggesting it would be hot by the time it was high overhead.  The truck he was sleeping on was red, weathered and flaking, one wheel missing a tire and propped on cinderblocks, as he discovered after tugging on the slacks with some difficulty and crawling out of the open tailgate.  It was parked several yards from the silver camper, and there seemed to be something resembling a road between the two, if rutted dust counted as a road.  There were a few other RVs of various sorts, in various states of disrepair, scattered around in a wide sweep across several acres of flat nothingness.  The horizon was thick with trees, bunched up like a line of sentinels along the northern edge of the park, and further down the dusty path he could see some kind of central building.  It was a sad excuse for an RV resort, and Leorio couldn't remember how he'd ended up there.

Most importantly, though, he was in immediate need of a bathroom.  A few seconds of turning slowly in place yielded the additional view of a paved road in the distance, beyond which the trees rolled with soft hills and descended into a hollow that probably accommodated a river.  A couple more dilapidated fifth wheels and equally dilapidated vehicles, and glory of glories, a bright green outhouse at what looked like an intersection between one rutted dust road and the next.

Leorio spent the entirety of the plodding trip to the port-a-potty and back trying to recall what had happened the night before, other than vodka.  He'd been out on the town with some friends, right?  It was the last night of med school--for _them_ , anyway.  Leorio kept having to withdraw for a semester, earn some money, come back.  There were new faces and old faces, and each time they ended up further ahead.  Each time his disadvantage was more apparent.  Each time there were fewer and fewer people he kept in touch with.

Two more years, and he didn't know how he was even going to manage those.  Leorio let out a sigh that was halfway to a growl, silently blessing the dispenser of sanitizer on the outhouse wall, rubbing it into his palms on the walk back.  Aggravating, that's what all of that was--but beside the point.

Hadn't they been downtown?  Did they drive out here?  Where was _Here_ , anyway?

Back where he started, Leorio paused by the water pump, considered, then gave in and stuck his head under the faucet and nearly yelped when the water drenched his head in a frosty deluge.  He shook it off his hair with an extended hiss, batting it away from his neck and shoulders before it soaked through his tank.  He tugged the dripping glasses off of his face and caught movement from the camper out of the corner of his eye--by the window?  But when he looked there was just a suncatcher of some kind.  Maybe a windchime?  He couldn't tell from a distance, through a nearsighted blur.

"Not very friendly, are we?" he muttered under his breath to the empty window, attempting to clean his glasses with the hem of his tank and giving the entire caravan an ascertaining once-over.  He didn't collect any further information than he already knew, and that just frustrated him more.

His pile of belongings were still in the truck bed as he left them, so at least the blond mystery being wasn't an opportunist.  None of the clothes seemed to be stained or doused with liquor, so Leorio pulled the shirt over his shoulders, buttoned a few buttons to look presentable, and flipped open the briefcase.  Just the usual contents--an extra tie, because he always managed to spill food on them.  First aid supplies jacked from his last intern position.  Electrolyte tablets to keep him awake and not dying during long CNA shifts.  A zippered pouch, the emergency stash of unmentionables that were unfortunate necessities of his existence, currently.  A cloth wrapped packet of sharps and two small vials.  Extra underwear, a bar of deodorant, and a toothbrush, because sometimes he caught two hours of sleep on an empty bed in the memory care ward and went straight to an 8 AM class from there.

A handful of blank time sheets, stuffed into the lid pocket along with a couple of bills that were due to become late notices.  A Twix bar.  And his wallet, thankfully, not that there was much inside.

And, of course, there was his phone, still sitting quietly atop his folded jacket.  He snatched it up with a grumble and swiped the screen to life, wondering what had possessed his friends to just abandon him in the back of a truck in the middle of nowhere and return home, probably to their warm and comfortable beds.

The screen that flashed open was of no help in this regard--no new messages, no missed calls, one tiny bar of reception and a battery gage that was dangerously low.  Two lost signal notices later he gave up on making a call and tried sending a text instead.

_Hey, what even happened last night?  Where did you guys go?  I have no idea where I am._

The response came through a moment later, after repacking the briefcase and shoving the wallet into his back pocket.

_Haha yeah I know what you mean bro.  What a wild ride.  Just sleep it off, man, you'll feel better eventually!_

And that was the last straw.

"SLEEP IT OFF MY ASS WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU I LITERALLY DO NOT KNOW WHERE THE FUCK I AM BECAUSE YOU ASSHOLES DITCHED ME IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.  I WILL PUNCH ALL OF YOU IN THE FACE JUST WAIT."

Leorio debated the merit of flinging his phone in the dirt, or maybe in the direction of the silver caravan, or maybe screaming to the heavens like an overwrought hero in an action flick, but eventually he just growled through his teeth and kicked feebly at the open tailgate.  It made a bit of noise, which was slightly satisfying.

When he lifted the phone again intending to submit a reply in allcaps, probably with a few rage emotes, the screen flashed a low battery warning and he ground out a few barely restrained curses instead.

He was cold, groggy, headachey, his skin itched with a layer of dust and sweat, the binder that he definitely should _not_ have slept in was digging painfully into his armpits, and the inside of his mouth tasted like a trash can.  He wanted a shower, toothpaste, a large cup of black coffee and a small handful of Tylenol, and a long nap in his own warm bed, in approximately that order.  He considered flinging the phone again, considered throwing a proper tantrum, considered throwing up his hands, grabbing all his things, and picking a direction to walk in until something happened.

What he did was suck in a long, aggravated breath, hold it for the count of five, and let it out.  None of that was actually going to solve anything.  What he needed to do, right now, was turn his phone off to conserve what little battery was left, and try to either find a place to charge it (that hopefully had better reception) or find a landline.

He only really had one place to start.

Leorio held the power button down on his phone until the screen went dark, hoping it would return to life when he needed it because all of his contact numbers were stored there and he didn't remember a single one--except maybe the nurse's station line in the east wing of Zaban Valley Life Care, but that wouldn't do him much good.  What he needed was the actual human being inside the silver caravan to help him out, or at least answer a few questions.

It looked more imposing, up close, glinting in the sun now that it was higher in the sky.  Leorio stayed at the base of the rickety steps that led up to the door, since the caravan's occupant seemed to be easily startled, and also he'd been yelling rather noticeably a moment ago.  "Uh," he started, feeling awkward talking to a blank metal surface, then raised his voice and rapped on the door a few times.  "Excuse me!  I'm sorry about earlier, but I could really use some help right now.  Hello?"

There was no response, no sound of movement from inside.  Leorio scowled a bit, muttered to himself about unfriendliness, dust, and idiot friends who couldn't tell a serious text from a joke.  "Oi."  He almost said _I know you're in there_ , but that sounded too creepy even for how worked up he was.  "Look, I just want to go home, can you at least tell me where I am?"

The pause that followed was weighted in a way that assured Leorio there was definitely someone listening, almost like a sixth sense prickling on the back of his neck.  A few heartbeats later there was a slight sound, maybe a footstep, and then the soft, grainy slide of a window opening.

Leorio scrambled back a few steps so he could see properly and sure enough, the portal-shaped window he thought he'd seen movement through before was sliding open and the caravan's occupant was there.  They were slightly distorted through the mesh screen and the glasses that were still not terribly clean, but not particularly upset as far as Leorio could tell.

"There's no need to yell," a soft voice said, something with a round and light quality that could easily have been an alto or a tenor.  "I can hear you just fine."

"Ahh," Leorio muttered, hand flying to the back of his neck, voice dropping to a mutter, "well, it's not like I could tell when this thing looks like a fortress.  Anyway.  Sorry about that."  He shifted on his heels, held both hands up in a placating gesture, and took another step to the side, trying to get a better look through the window.  The blond... well, the blond seemed to be leaning over a counter, shoulders hunched around their ears, impassive expression on their face.  "So apparently my friends ditched me here last night and I need to call for a ride home, but my phone is just about dead.  Do you have one I could borrow?  Or maybe a charger so I could juice up mine?"

"You won't be able to get a good enough signal to call out from here."  The response was just as impassive as the expression.

Leorio felt his back teeth clenching together and sucked in a breath through his nose.  "And just where is here, exactly?"

"Shipwreck Island RV Park, on a private drive about two miles off of state route 404."

_Fine audition for the role of GPS navigator_ , Leorio thought.  "404... 404... ghhh, I don't remember a route 404 around Zaban City.  How far out in the county is it?"

"Zaban," the blond echoed and had the grace to sound startled, the first detectable trace of emotion since that shriek earlier.  "It's at least 20 miles from here to the interstate, and another 80 to Zaban City from there.  How did you get out here?"

Leorio made a noise that was halfway between a frog croaking and an airhorn, and may have choked on his own spit.  "EIGHTY miles?"  He was pretty sure--he was almost completely positive he and his drinking buddies hadn't driven two hours out into the countryside and gone randomly down some mystery highway just to party it up in a strange run-down RV park.  How he even got out here was a big enough question, but the bigger and probably more urgent one at this point was just how the hell was he going to get _back?_

The next time the blond spoke there was something approaching sympathy in their voice, although Leorio was too busy staring at the dust under his feet in agonized disbelief to see what expression was on their face.  "The manager's office is in the big building in the center of the park.  It might have a phone, but the manager isn't there very often.  Otherwise, there's a gas station and grocery at the intersection of the main drive and the highway, two miles to the west."

Well, that was something.  Not much of something, but at least it gave him somewhere to start, as much as he'd almost rather just throw that tantrum and be done with it.  "Alright.  I'll give those a shot.  Thanks."

The blond didn't respond, just gave a small hum that should have been a proper _you're welcome_ , and the lack thereof conjured imaginary scolding in Leorio's brain regarding young people and basic courtesy.  Not that he was anywhere near old enough to talk.

Briefcase in hand, he started a long, dusty trudge towards the central building, eyeballing each trailer he passed and searching for some sign of life within them.  A few were so dilapidated they were quite literally falling apart, and a glance through the gaping doorways or broken windows assured him that they were unoccupied.  At least, he really, really hoped they were.

A few others seemed well tended, although he didn't pass by close to them, but he could see small potted gardens outside the doors, or awnings drawn out over adirondack chairs, but nothing moved.  It was like walking through a three-dimensional portrait or a movie set, a carefully constructed in imitation of life, but unnaturally still.

The central building was oddly triangular, with high windows wrapping around beneath a peaked blue roof.  A rusting weather vane sat at the top pointing due east, but there wasn't even a slight breeze that Leorio could detect.  A windowed door seemed to be the only entrance, and it creaked when he tugged on the handle, weighted poorly enough that it slammed forcefully behind him.  The windows flooded the white-painted cinderblock interior with natural light, high ceilings fully open with a few round, grate-covered fluorescent lights that reminded Leorio of a high school gymnasium.  Walls that cut off a foot above his head sectioned off, appropriately, a locker and shower area, a small laundromat, a poor excuse for a lounge with a few sputtering vending machines and an ancient microwave, and finally, a small office with a counter and a shuttered window, a faded plate on the closed door reading _Management_.

He tried knocking and calling out hello a few times before giving the knob a tug, then trying the rolling shutter to see if it was locked, too.  No luck, and a cursory search of the entire building yielded no phone, pay or courtesy or otherwise.  There were plenty of electrical outlets, but without a charger they didn't do him any good.  Leorio was scratching a hand through his hair, hissing a low curse, and wondering if it was worthwhile to check around the outside and maybe across the grounds to see if there was a pay phone anywhere, when the door gave an almost demonic creak and a small, rather round person backed through it, arms full of a cracked plastic laundry basket loaded with clothes.

Leorio stopped in his tracks, and the stranger looked up at the sound of his foot scuffing the concrete floor, and for a few protracted seconds they stared at each other wide-eyed as though neither of them had ever seen another human being before.

The round person had an equally round face and a bulbous, squashed nose that reminded Leorio of a dinner roll.  "Uh," Leorio said at length with the greatest amount of intelligence he could muster, and he could have sworn that for a fraction of a second he saw a strange expression cross the other’s face.

It was only an instant, too quick to identify, so quick that a second later Leorio wondered if he'd actually seen it at all or imagined it--and after that instant the newcomer gave him a warm smile.  "Well, you're a new face.  If you're interested in renting a lot, the manager won't be in again until Monday, probably."

"Ahh, no," Leorio said, hands up in front of himself, then mentally backpedaled.  "I mean, I'm not interested in renting, but I was looking for the manager.  Not for manager-related things, but to use the phone.  Assuming there is one."

"You need to make a call?"

"Yeah.  Apparently my friends came out here on a joyride last night and they ditched me, so I need to call someone and get a ride back into town.  But my cell is almost dead and the reception out here is terrible."

"That's true, it's almost not worth it to have one.”  The round man scratched at the stubble on his chin--stubble or a weak attempt at a beard, Leorio couldn’t tell which--with a pensive expression that directed itself outside the door rather than towards the topic at hand.  “Well, I think there is a phone in the office, but if it's locked up there's not much for it."

"Does the manager live on site?  Is there any way of getting them to come let me in?"

"Hmm."  The stranger maneuvered his rotund body the rest of the way through the door and it slammed shut with a frightening bang behind him.  "He does live on site, but I believe he's away for the weekend.  You might just be stuck here until Monday, my friend."  He shifted the basket over to one hip so he could hold out one thick-fingered hand.  "Name's Tonpa, by the way.  Where did you say you woke up?"

"Ah, it's Leorio."  He shook the man's hand without hesitation, something in the back of his mind readily suggesting how much more friendly this resident of the bizarre RV park was than the blond in the silver caravan, who hadn't even introduced themself.  "I didn’t?  But.  It was an old red truck, out that way," he gestured towards the door and Tonpa followed the movement with a turn of the head.  "The one with a wheel missing."

"I see," the man echoed with interest, staring out the small window as though he could see the vehicle from where he stood.  "Well then," he said in a more natural tone, returning to face Leorio with a sunny disposition.  "You seem to be stuck here for a few days one way or the other.  If you don't mind waiting a few minutes, I have coffee brewing back in my camper.  We can check in and see if the manager is home after breakfast, but if not you're welcome to stay at my place until Monday."

"Wow."  Leorio wasn't sure how to respond to the sudden hospitality and habitually stuffed his free hand into his pocket.  His phone was there, still powered off, and he fingered the screen pensively.  "I appreciate the offer, really, but I think I'll try huffing it down the road to that... what was it, a mini-mart?"

"The crossroads grocery?"  Tonpa blinked, face stretched upwards in surprise.  "Did you pass it on the way in?"

"Aha, I don't remember, to be honest.  There was a person... there's a caravan next to that truck, actually, a big silver Airstream.  The person who lives there told me that there might be a phone here, and if not there was one at the grocery down the road."

"I see," Tonpa said, similar to how he'd said it when Leorio explained where he'd woken, but this time with an undercurrent that sounded like irritation.  "Well, it's a bit of a hike, but that is an option, I suppose.  Don't underestimate the weather around here, though.  It tends to change on a whim, and no one quite knows what that whim will be."

"I'll keep that in mind."  Leorio pulled his hand away from his phone, decided, and raised it to his forehead in a light salute.  "Thanks for your help."

"Not at all."

They'd passed each other, and Leorio had pushed the door halfway open when Tonpa spoke again from the laundry area.  "If by chance anything doesn't work out, feel free to come back here.  I'm in space 16, and my offer stands."

"I appreciate that."

Outside the sky was blue and cloudless.  Leorio shielded his eyes with his free hand, wondering how the weather could possibly change suddenly, even in the span of time it would take to walk two miles.

In any case, there should definitely be a phone of some kind at the crossroads.  Hadn't the blond said it was a grocery and gas station?  Gas meant cars, and cars meant he could probably hitch a ride back to civilization.  It had been worth it to check the manager's office, but the market was definitely his best bet at getting out of here in a reasonable amount of time.

All he had to do was walk there.

 

 

Gon had both feet planted on the ground and the front wheel of his dirt bike between them, arms dangling over the handlebars until the metal dug into his armpits and his hands were bumping limp against the spokes as he swayed idly from side to side.  The road was quiet today, not that it had ever been busy, not that he'd ever seen a single vehicle come and go along it other than the motor scooter that delivered groceries to the RV park every Thursday.  Today felt slightly different, though, maybe in the way the sun was already hot on his bare shoulders, or how the air smelled kind of sharp and damp.

"Anyway," Killua's voice said behind him, quiet and warm with amusement, accompanied by a sharp tug on the back of his bike.  Gon tilted his head sideways in acknowledgment but didn't look back.  "If you want my Vaporeon you're gonna have to make a better offer."

"Blastoise is the same level water type as Vaporeon," Gon muttered to his tire, curling one finger around a spoke.

"But its attacks aren't as effective.  If you want to make an even one-for-one trade you've gotta make an offer at the same level with the same amount of versatility.  Like..."  Killua trailed off with another tug at the bike.  "Articuno."

"You can't have my Articuno!"  Gon twisted around abruptly to plant his elbow on the bike seat and glare down at his best friend, hunched over the rear tire with a length of rope in his hands.  Killua's mouth was pursed in a way that reminded him of a cat.  "That's not even a fair trade and you know it!"

Killua hummed like he wondered if that was the truth and bent his head down until all Gon could see was his fluffy pale hair.

"You're trying to hustle me."

"Someday it might work."  There was one more tug on the bike and Killua rose from his crouch, pulling on the rope to test the knots.  "There."

"Are you sure about this?"

"If we make it all the way to the store you have to get me choco balls."  Killua followed the rope to the end where he'd fashioned a handle, and put one foot on his skateboard.  "It'll be just like water skiing."

"I can go pretty fast.  Are you sure?"

"Bring it on."

Gon twisted back around, flexed his grip around the handlebars and made a great show of pushing at the pedals.  "You're too heavy!"

"I'm on wheels!"

"Just kidding."  Gon blew a raspberry over his shoulder, stood up on the pedals, and broke into a sprint.

Killua made a few noises of protest somewhere behind him that died down once he was up to speed and sitting back on the seat, giving the pedals a few cursory turns every few seconds to keep them coasting.  The air smelled sharper whipping past his face, dragging through the longer spikes of hair on top of his head, tugging at the loose edges of his tank top.  He could hear the wheels of the skateboard whirring behind him, couldn't see what Killua was doing but heard a sharp laugh after a while, so the experiment must have been working out as designed.

He knew every dip and curve of this road, after the last several months they'd spent traversing back and forth from the riverside to the RV park to the grocery and back, so when the pavement bulged upward slightly he knew there was a steep decline just past it, and he rose up on the pedals again to pick up speed.  Killua apparently realized the same thing, a few seconds too late, and tried yelling, "Gon, hold on a second," anyway, but--

Gon crested the hill with a ferocious jungle whoop, riding gravity downwards at breakneck speed, bent over the handlebars with both legs spread out in front of him, and imagined flying.  Halfway down Killua's less enthusiastic yell passed him by, accompanied by the boy himself, skateboard propelling him past Gon on the left and whipping him down the road at a speed that was probably uncontrollable.  The rope and handle rattled away somewhere behind the bike and Gon started pedaling again in a feeble attempt to catch up.  Killua looked unsteady on the board, arms spread out, trying to gain enough control to slow down or just keep balanced until inertia won out.

Just when it looked like Killua might be losing to the laws of physics, though, he crouched low on the board and swung a broad arc across the road, low enough that one hand pushed off from the concrete midway, nearly crashing into the gravel on the far side.  He righted himself with some difficulty, straightened back to standing with care, and continued rolling at a more sedate pace back towards Gon.

Closer up, his expression was drawn out in horizontal lines, mouth and eyes flat and narrow.  "You did that on purpose."

Gon grinned broadly, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.  "I knew it was nothing you couldn't handle."

Killua came to a stop with one foot on the ground and tried to maintain his irritation, valiantly, for all of five seconds, before he looked sharply to one side with a low scoff and a hint of color on his cheeks.  "Shut up."

Gon chuckled through his nose and propelled his bike forward a bit with his feet on the pavement.  "Wanna try again?  There are four more hills between here and the crossroads."

"Are you going to jack-knife me over all of those, too?"

"Maaaaaaybe."

Killua gave this due consideration with the same flat expression, before pushing off and rolling along the discarded rope to where the handle lay, worse for wear now.  "You definitely owe me a box of choco balls."

"Right, right," Gon said, and stood up on the pedals.

 

 

The "main road," if it could be called that, was a narrow drive that was nearly two lanes wide in theory but probably not in practice, Leorio guessed, judging by how no one had bothered to paint any lines down the center.  The place where it joined with the gravel and dirt tracks of the RV park was strewn with dust kicked back from vehicles--not many, as far as he could tell, and all of them heading west towards the grocery-slash-gas station.  The only thing turning the opposite direction looked like bicycle tracks.

A few yards from the entrance was what passed for the park's sign, a peeling aluminum slab propped up on creaking boards, washed out lettering over an image so faded it was impossible to make out.  Shipwreck Island RV Park.  Looking at it from here, he would have thought it was abandoned--not somewhat functioning with management and a clean and useable central facility.  The location was hardly convenient, and there weren't any recreational activities in the area, that he knew of.  The people living here... well, he supposed they must want or need to be off the grid, away from society, for whatever reason.

He thought about the blond in the silver caravan, and wondered.

The comment Tonpa made about the weather stuck like peanut butter in the back of his throat, just annoying enough to keep him glancing upward, scanning the horizon, wondering if it were truly possible for a thunderstorm to form out of a clear blue sky.  It was May, and warm enough that he was glad he'd slung his jacket over his briefcase, even though it was still fairly early.  His stomach grumbled as he walked, which probably accounted for the peanut butter metaphors, and the further and longer he walked the more he started to feel a bristling dislike for the surrounding landscape.  It was just dry enough to seem barren but not barren enough to see very far past the yellowed grass and brush and distant trees.  It was flat enough to be boring but rolling just enough that he couldn't see very far ahead.  The blond had said the grocery was two miles; maybe he'd underestimated how far of a distance that was to walk, rather than drive.

The second time he climbed slowly up a low rise in the topography and crested the top, hoping to see some indication of a building and highway in the distance, only to see the road dip down and rise up again further off, he almost wished that hypothetical thunderstorm would appear, just to shake things up a bit.  He started down the hill with a few low incoherent grumbles that nobody heard but him, and nearly tripped over his own feet when his perspective shifted downward enough to realize that _there were people on the road_.  Fairly literally, _on_ the road--a bicycle lying on its side and an upturned skateboard around two kids, sitting in the middle of the pavement as calmly as though it were a park or someone's front lawn.

His first instinct, of course, was to yell at them to get out of the road before someone ran them over--not that there were any cars coming and going down this drive (he would have tried to flag one down if there were) or any indication of operating cars anywhere in the vicinity.  He'd been listening, closely, for any sign, on the off-chance that he _could_ flag one down.  But all he'd heard so far was the occasional buzz of an insect or invisible rustle in the underbrush.  Without a breeze, the landscape was just as unnaturally still as the RV park had been.

Regardless, he'd opened his mouth to bellow out the warning anyway, just on principle, but before he could emit a sound one of the kids--the dark-haired one--sat back on their heels and spotted him.  Leorio was, apparently, an exciting enough find to warrant jumping up and waving both arms enthusiastically, and that made whatever words he'd been planning to say die in his throat.

"Hey, mister!"

_Mister_.  Four years on testosterone and there was still that tug, the little jump in his stomach anytime someone said it.   _Mister_ Leorio.  Of course, one day everyone would call him Doctor, but until then, Mister was just fine.  More than fine.

He increased his pace, easy to do on the downhill slope, the hand with his briefcase raising up at his side to keep the jacket from falling in the dirt.  "Don't just sit in the middle of the road like that, what if I was a car?"

"No one is coming."

The dark-haired kid said so with such deliberate certainty that for a second Leorio believed him without question.  Then he remembered that he was an adult, and therefore paranoid about every looming possibility.  "You don't know that."

"Anyway, it's because my friend fell off his skateboard and can't walk."

"I'm fine," was the first thing the other kid said--the one with a shock of pale silver hair and a sour expression, still seated, one leg bent and cradled protectively close to his body.

"He's not actually fine, he's just stubborn."

In fact, closer up, it did look like the pale-haired kid had skinned both of his knees, and that ankle was probably twisted.  If they'd both come down this hill on wheels, at full speed, he was probably fortunate to not have been hurt worse.

Also closer up the dark-haired kid had the biggest, brownest puppydog eyes Leorio had ever seen, and he put them to good use, staring up at him with both hands fisted at his side, angelic expression drawn expertly on his face, until Leorio sighed and gestured idly with his briefcase.  "I'm actually--well, I'm not a doctor, but I'm studying to be one.  I'm actually a nurse.  Not really a nurse, though, just a nursing assistant."

The dark-haired kid looked genuinely interested, mouth forming into a round o.  His friend was less impressed, eyes narrowing, attention shifting to somewhere on the side of the road.  "I don't need any of those things."

"But you broke your ankle!"

"It's not broken, Gon.  Tell the old man to hit the road."

"Old ma--"

"If you can't stand on it, it's broken!"

"If you hadn't catapulted me over the hill again, I wouldn't have fallen!"

"Hey, mister--"

"It's Leorio."  He said it loud enough to inject himself into the bickering and shut it down, at least for the moment; firmly enough that even the pale-haired kid looked contrite.  He wasn't here to lecture them, though, and after a second of what he felt was at least mildly respectful silence, he let out another sigh and crouched onto his knees.  "What's your name?"

"Killua."

"Killua.  Can you really not stand on it?"  Leorio managed to not laugh or get overly irritated with the petulant scowl he got in response.  "Because if you can't, and you don't treat it properly, it could get worse.  A lot worse."

The kid's expression shifted to something between distrust and mild interest.  "How much worse?"

"Well, in an extreme case it might have to be amputated--"

Killua made a choked noise in panic, just for a moment, before folding his arms in defiance and trying to school himself back into indifference.  "You're lying.  He's lying, Gon," he added when his friend looked like he was about to start arguing again.

Leorio shrugged, trying to meet the kid’s reluctance with indifference.  Adults being earnest with kids at this age (twelve? thirteen? thereabouts) usually just made them more stubborn.  "You want to take that chance?  Wouldn't it be easier just to let me look at it?"

The pout on Killua's face was pretty magnificent.  "I guess."

"Alright then."  Leorio set his briefcase down and considered for half a second before dropping his jacket beside it and settling on his knees.  He wasn't in a position to worry about whether his clothes were getting dirty, really.  It was pretty inevitable at this point; he'd slept in the bed of a rusty old truck, after all.  "Can you take your shoe off, or do you want me to?"

Leorio was used to working with elderly people, but a lot of those elderly people had grandkids and grandkids had bumps and bruises and cuts and any of a variety of maladies, real or imagined, that the grandparent might insist he check on.  Most of them were reasonably cured with a Spiderman bandaid and a lollipop.  This was going to be a little more complicated.

Killua was the name of the pale-haired kid, and the dark one, he'd gathered, was Gon.  They were both tanned well enough for it to be midsummer rather than late spring (in Gon’s case, his skin had probably been brown to begin with and was now just More Brown), had a few healing scabs on their arms and legs unrelated to the current incident with the skateboard, and their clothes weren't so much dirty (although Gon's white tank had a smudge across the chest and Killua was spotted with dust and black pavement dirt, presumably from his spill) as dingy, old, and a bit threadbare.  The sneaker Killua started untying was losing its tread, nearly worn smooth.  He'd worked it about halfway off when his face twisted up and his fingers started shaking and Leorio realized that this kid was going to be a lot of trouble.

Leorio ground his teeth together.  "If it hurts, stop."

"I'm fine," Killua grumbled, and Gon leaned over him wide-eyed.

"Wow, it's really swollen!"

"Shut up."

"I think you should let the doctor take it off."

"He's not a doctor!"

"Then let me do it."

Gon said it with the same determination he’d used earlier to convince Leorio that there were definitely no cars coming, and with a warmth that made something tingle in his spine, even though it was clearly directed at Killua.  He wasn’t sure if he was being hypnotized, somehow, into trusting this kid, or if he really was so effortlessly genuine that he couldn’t bring himself not to.  Either way, the stoicism drained out of Killua as he watched, and when Gon pulled his hands away from the injured ankle he didn’t resist.  Leorio didn’t think to interfere until a few seconds too late, but Gon had a clear idea of what he was doing, loosening the shoelace until the tips nearly fell out of their grommets.  He pulled the shoe free with barely a tug, and Killua’s eyes were comically wide, like he was shocked that Gon had accomplished this thing without causing any pain at all.

“Good job,” Leorio said after being impressed took maybe a second longer than was strictly necessary.  “You can be my assistant.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected in response to that, but Gon punching the air with an enthusiastic whoop wasn’t quite it.  It was encouraging, though, and Killua seemed mollified and slightly embarrassed rather than petulant, so it worked out.

The exam continued in what he thought of as procedural, at first, explaining what he was going to do before he did it, assuring consent, being specific about what he needed-- _I’m going to press a few places on your leg and foot and I need you to tell me if you feel any pain, okay, don’t brush it off because it only hurts a little, be honest_ \--while contemplating what he’d have to do if there was a fracture.  Then Gon bent over him, bubbling with curiosity and wanting to know everything he was doing, so he started explaining it in detail-- _this protrusion here at the ankle is the tibia, and the one on the outside is the fibula; if there’s pain here that means there’s a fracture in the leg.  These five bones are the metatarsals, there’s one attached to each toe.  If there’s pain here in the fifth one, then there’s a fracture in the foot.  Now, this here on the inside of your foot is called the navicular bone.  If there’s pain anywhere here, then there’s a fracture._

By the end of the lecture both boys were fully engaged, prodding at Killua’s foot, too fascinated by the injury to remember that it was painful.  “So if none of these hurt, does that mean it’s not broken?” Gon asked.

“Probably,” Leorio clarified, keeping a firm hold on Killua’s heel while he dug through the contents of his briefcase--their curiosity was fine, but if the ankle didn’t stay immobile the pain would return with a vengeance.  “Ideally you need an x-ray to know for sure, so you should go straight home to your parents and have them take you to urgent care.  Okay?”

There was a long pause that rooted itself deep into Leorio’s suspicions before the two chorused “Okaaaaaay,” back to him, and he considered how to respond to that while he instructed Gon to hold Killua’s leg steady while he wrapped an ace bandage around the ankle.  He didn’t have any stickers or lollipops, unfortunately--he did have that Twix bar, but considering it was the only food in his possession, he wasn’t eager to give it up.

In lieu of pacifying the two, instead, he carefully replaced the shoe, tied it loosely, let Killua have his foot back, and pushed his briefcase closed with one hand.  “It’ll be tough for both of you to get home, actually.  Should I escort you?”

Another long pause and an exchanged glance between the two boys fueled Leorio’s suspicions into something like a raging bonfire.  “I can carry Killua on my back!” Gon volunteered, one arm in the air as though he was in a classroom and definitely knew the answer.  “So we’ll be fine!”

“But if you carry him, what about your bike and skateboard?”

“Uhm.”

“You don’t have to carry me.  Just help me up.”  Killua raised his hand and Gon pulled his arm around his shoulder without word or hesitation, lifting both of them to their feet.

“Keep your weight off that,” Leorio said, and gathered up his own things, then rounded the two before they could protest and hefted up the dirt bike with his free arm.  There was a rope lead dangling from the back, probably the object of Killua’s demise if he was being tugged along behind Gon’s bike with it, and he slung it around the frame a few times so it wouldn’t trail after him.  “Lead the way.  Do you live in the RV park?”

Killua looked up from grabbing his skateboard by the wheel, and exchanged another telling glance with Gon.  The silence stretched out for several seconds, during which Leorio plastered an impassive smile across his face, eyebrow twitching, suspicion tearing across his mental landscape like a wildfire--while the two boys conversed telepathically (as far as he could tell).

Then Gon grinned brightly and announced, “We live in a tree by the river.”

Leorio slowly set the bike down and left it propped against his knee, so he had a hand free to slowly push over his face, up under his glasses, and rub his eyes.  “A tree by the river.”

“Yep!”

_“Where are your parents?”_

Gon made a great show of thinking deliberately about this question.  “Well… I never met my mother, but my dad should be back around sometime in the fall.  He usually is.”

_“Usually,”_ Leorio sputtered, flinging the one free hand out to the side, nearly dislodging his glasses in the process.  “How long have you been here on your own?”

“Uhhhh, a few months, maybe?  It was kind of cold still when we moved in.”

“A few.  Months.”  Leorio enunciated each word slowly.   _“In a tree.”_  He turned his attention from Gon to Killua, who was carefully not looking at him, taking undue interest in the underside of his skateboard instead.  They might be related, Leorio supposed, but he was pretty certain they weren’t siblings.  Their features were much too different.  “What about you, Killua?”

Gon’s face hardened in a way that made Leorio rethink everything he knew about these two otherwise normal-seeming kids he’d found in the road after a standard kid-related accident.  “Killua can’t go back to his house, so he’s staying with me.”

Leorio didn’t respond for a long moment, meeting Gon’s stare, considering everything in front of him, his own situation, and what might happen to these two boys if he left them here, without care and without supervision.  Something tugged at his gut, a sense of responsibility or guilt or kinship, maybe, or some combination of all three.  He was facing back the way he came, and the crossroads gas and grocery was some distance behind him, possibly his only chance of getting home.  If he strayed from the goal now to assure Gon and Killua, two kids he’d just met, were safe, how long would it be before he could get back on track?

There were a number of things Leorio didn’t like admitting he was really, _really_ bad at; pretending he didn’t care was one of them.  So at length, after a long, aggravated sigh, he bent down and picked the bike up again.  “Alright.  That ankle needs to be iced to bring the swelling down and relieve the pain.  Do you know anyone around here who can help?”

Gon’s stern look melted into a sunny smile.  “Sure!  We know some people at the park.”

“I hope you’re not thinking about that old geezer,” Killua muttered as they started moving, hissing a bit and leaning heavily on Gon’s shoulder.  “I don’t wanna be stuck listening to him for however long it takes for this to heal.”

“Ahh, he’s not that bad,” Gon insisted but Killua scoffed at the roadside.  “Leorio, aren’t you out here visiting someone?”

“No, I’m here by accident, actually.”

Killua snorted but Gon looked oddly fascinated.  “What accident?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I was out with my friends last night and it seems like they left me asleep in the back of a pickup truck at the RV park.”  Leorio hefted the bike up higher until he could settle the frame on his shoulder.  His shirt was going to get dirty, too.  Everything seemed to be going downhill.  “I don’t really remember it all that well.”

“Oh?  Did you hit your head?”

Killua made a noise that definitely qualified as superior preteen derision.  “They were drinking, Gon.”

“Ohhhhh I see.”

Leorio hadn't come all that far, he didn't think--probably not a full mile, but getting back with two kids that only had three working legs between them was going to take much longer than he'd spent getting out here at a motivated, long-legged pace.

And what was he even going to do with his mismatched set of miscreant twelve-year-olds, now that he'd found them?  He couldn't call child services without a phone.  Or the police.  And something about the way Gon spoke with that hard stare unnerved him enough that he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to.

Someone in the park was bound to know them and want to supervise them, if they'd been here that long, if Gon's claim that they knew plenty of people there was verifiable.  And then, hopefully, he could start off on his two mile hike yet again--and maybe, possibly, reach his destination this time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Watch out for spiders,” was apparently the only thing Kurapika had to say while they grabbed several pieces and loaded Leorio’s arms up. That wasn’t exactly comforting, and he wriggled them around a bit, ostensibly seeking a better grip but really trying to detect any kind of movement that might indicate he should drop the wood immediately and maybe run screaming._
> 
> In which Gon imposes on Kurapika's hospitality and Leorio catches a fish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So um... I'd like to apologize in advance for the pronoun switching that happens around Kurapika, for anyone who might be uncomfortable with that. It is actually part of the story and will get resolved eventually after some false starts. If it helps, I was pretty uncomfortable writing it, which made me sit down and think long and hard about a few things, not the least of which being how I wanted to handle Kurapika's gender in this fic.
> 
> On a brighter note please feel free to visit [my spring haze tag on tumblr](http://caseyvalhalla.tumblr.com/tagged/spring+haze) for teaser scenes and some rad illustrations by @kurahpikah.
> 
> This is a really long chapter but I figured no one would mind.

>   _we like to watch you laughing_  
>  _you pick insects off the plants_  
>  _no time to think of consequences_

* * *

There were few things in the world that Gon enjoyed more than having someone new to talk to, especially when that someone answered his rapid-fire questions and didn’t talk to him like a dumb kid who wouldn't understand adult ideas.  Leorio was a wellspring of information, littered with terminology Gon kept having to stop and make him define because medicine was almost a foreign language.  Gon wasn't dumb by any definition, had a smattering of education from a handful of schools that he attended for a handful of months at a time, and he understood enough of the basics to not get sent back to his foster guardian with a firmly worded letter from the teacher _too_ terribly often.

His intelligence was naturally closer to the ground, though, in the earth and growth and movement, in living and surviving and solving the problems in front of him.  But Leorio was a _scientist_ , and that fascinated him kind of like Killua fascinated him.  Differently, because Leorio used big words and big ideas to understand how human bodies worked and what they needed to heal.  Killua was sometimes like the physical embodiment of energy, an electric charge of games, mischief, and sarcasm--and sometimes like a wild animal caught in a trap.

Gon wondered if Leorio had an alternate, undisclosed identity, too.

Propping up Killua by the shoulder began to drag both of them down after a while, and Gon guessed that his friend must have been more exhausted than he let on, because when he crouched down to offer a piggyback ride, Killua draped himself over his back without protest.  By the time the sign for the RV park was in view, Gon was pretty sure he'd dozed off, judging by the limp arms dangling around his neck and the heavy breath against his shoulder.

Leorio trailed off at the end of his extended explanation of the previous night’s drinking and joyriding, although the joyriding part sounded kind of vague to Gon, and if he thought about it, he was pretty sure he hadn't heard any vehicles coming or going from the RV park the night before.  Even in the treehouse with the white noise of rushing water nearby, his ears were still pretty sharp.

"Anyhow, I woke up in this truck next to a big silver caravan.  Whoever lives in it wasn't very friendly but at least told me about the manager's office and the market at the crossroads.  The manager wasn't in, though, and I ran into this other guy who said he was out for the weekend—"

"What?" Gon's head whipped around abruptly enough that Killua grunted in his sleep.  "You tried to see the manager?"

"Yeah, but apparently he's on vacation."

"Aww, man."  Gon used his disappointed pause and deflation to shift Killua's weight and reposition his arms.  "I thought we'd go visit him, but I guess not."

"Well, the guy I ran into—Tonpa?  He seemed pretty hospitable.  Said he was in space 16."

"Tonpa," Gon echoed, pondering.  "Ohh, does he have a really round nose?"

"Yeah, that's the guy."

They turned in at the drive where the pavement gave way to dirt and meandered in among lots strewn with gravel and short-cropped desert grass.  Most of the ones nearest the entrance were empty.

"He's alright," Gon observed after some thought.  "He gets us sodas out of the vending machine sometimes."  And he'd talk about having them over to his lot for a barbecue sometimes, but Netero always interrupted their conversation from the office and sidetracked whatever plans were in the works.

"He's a weirdo," Killua muttered into his neck, yawning.

"Ah, you're awake!"

"S'cause you're a terrible pillow."

"Well," Leorio continued, pausing several paces ahead of them and looking around the park at length, "if not Tonpa, and not the manager, who else do you know?"

"Hmm."  Gon kept walking while he thought, because movement helped the gears in his head keep turning, processing, unearthing new ideas from beneath the old ones.  They were approaching the first cross-lane when he stopped abruptly, metaphorical light bulb blazing in his mind.  "Ahh!  Did you say you were in an old red truck?"

"Yeah."

"By a big silver trailer?  With the word Airstream on it?"

"Yeah, that was it."

"Let's go there!"

"Ehhh, but—" Leorio started, but Gon was hurrying ahead regardless.  "Hey!  Do you know the person who lives there?  They weren't all that welcoming."

"Gon," Killua added, closer, quieter.  "Who is it?"

"The one with the Hot Pockets."

"OH.  Yeah, let's go there."

"Hey—HEY, are you listening to me?  Hold on a sec—"

Gon blithely ignored Leorio’s concerns and set off at a rapid pace along the center of one dusty rut, and probably would have broken into a run if he wasn’t worried it would jostle Killua (and subsequently Killua’s ankle).  The Airstream was roughly halfway between the park entrance and the central facility, and came into view quickly through the sparse assortment of RVs taking up the bare lots.  Gon was at least somewhat familiar with each trailer that was occupied—although some of the ones that supposedly _weren’t_ occupied gave him the creeps and he habitually gave them a wide berth whenever he and Killua were playing in the area or looking for a free lunch.

Most of those were on the north end of the park, though, so he hurried along the path without concern, only half an ear for the man trailing behind him.  Leorio was slouched over, gangling limbs loaded down with Gon’s bike and Killua’s skateboard and his own possessions, grumbling about young people like a man three times his age.

The main door to the caravan was standing open when they arrived, with the screen shut and a few windows cracked.  Killua made a clicking noise near his ear and asked, “Do you remember what his name is?  Kuro-something.”

It only took Gon a few seconds to spin an imaginary wheel in his mind, matching up names to faces, then he trotted up to the door bellowing at the top of his lungs—

“KURAPIKAAAAAAA!”

There was a crash from somewhere inside the trailer and Gon winced, nervous laughter behind his teeth, maybe a little guilty.  Killua sputtered and called him an idiot, which was probably warranted, and the alarm he’d caused became apparent when the person in question shoved open the screen door, barefoot, blond hair askew, an oversized long-sleeved tee slipping precariously off of one shoulder as though it was just thrown on in a dazed panic.  And that was likely exactly what happened, Gon supposed, judging by his expression and wide brown eyes.

“What?  What happened?”

“Nothing,” Killua deadpanned over Gon’s shoulder.  “He’s just dumb.”

Kurapika didn’t look convinced, hands framing the doorway and the edge of the screen, glancing over the two of them with a frown.  “Are you bleeding?”

“Not really.”

“Killua fell on the road because I went over a hill too fast,” Gon explained, because waiting for Killua to admit to things would take all day.  Or possibly multiple days.  “We thought his ankle was broken but it’s not.  Do you have some ice?”

Kurapika opened and closed his mouth a few times while Gon explained, like he meant to get a word in edgewise somewhere before he was left blinking at the ice question.  After a few seconds of incredulous silence, Gon wondered if Kurapika had accidentally swallowed a bug, because he made a gagging noise and his pupils retracted and the screen door shuddered a little under his grip.

But what happened, in fact, was that he looked over Gon’s head and saw Leorio approaching with a bike over his shoulder and several things falling out of his hands.  Gon saw him in a backward glance, then grinned brightly at Kurapika.  “Leorio said he met you earlier.”

“Er, well.  Sort of.”  Kurapika’s mouth twisted on itself a bit, and his shoulders hunched around his ears, but the body language shifted back to his usual placid self another second later.  “Hold on.  Sit down in the grass, I’ll get some ice.”

“Okay!”  Gon hopped out of the gravel and onto the grassy patch that ran alongside the trailer, held down at the far end with a heavy wooden picnic table and an iron-ringed fire pit.  He let Killua down onto his good leg and grabbed a few things out of Leorio’s arms so he could lower the bike without destroying it or something else.  Leorio looked perturbed, in kind of a similar way as Kurapika had, only less like he’d swallowed a bug and more like the blond had offended his ancestors.  “What’s wrong?”

“Is that—is that person actually going to help you?”

“Of course!”

Leorio made a low, nasal sound like he didn’t really believe that, and took his briefcase back from Gon.  “Don’t trust people so easily.”

“I trusted _you_ easily.”

“Well,” Leorio said.  His eyes closed, and his eyebrows drew together until his entire forehead wrinkled.  “That’s different.  Obviously.  I’m a doctor.”

“You said you were an assistant nurse.”

“I—” Leorio started, then stopped, mouth tugging down into a comical frown, and then he dropped the whole thing and stalked over to Killua.  “I’m gonna disinfect those knees now and I promise you it’s gonna sting.”

“You don’t scare me, old man,” Killua declared, tongue sticking out, but after a few minutes he was squirming and asked Leorio if he was attending school to be a doctor or a sadist.  Gon remained on the sidelines, smiling benevolently at the chaos he’d created, wondering if Kurapika would bring out some Hot Pockets along with an ice pack.

 

 

To be fair to Killua, kids whose scraped knees were being sprayed with antiseptic didn’t respond well in general, and he was handling it better than most.  He was also louder and more foul-mouthed than the grandkids in the memory care ward (whose parents were present), so there were definite pros and cons to the situation Leorio found himself in.  On the plus side, he hadn’t been kicked in the face; on the minus, although not terribly minus, he’d learned a handful of colorful phrases that would have made undergrad frat boys blush.

(And Leorio knew, because he used to go to their parties and compete at foul-mouthed drunkenness.)

The _real_ minus didn’t come until a moment later, when that frustratingly indeterminate alto-tenor voice flared up behind and slightly above Leorio’s head and asked with a virulent undercurrent of uncensored disdain, “So, are you treating his injuries or murdering him?”

Leorio sat back on his heels and looked up and behind himself awkwardly, squinting through the sun and the glare across his glasses, observing his blond nemesis up close for the first time.  He noted, in increasingly panicked order, the fact that they were just as good-looking as they had been from a distance; the fact that they were dressed in a loose light-green top that drooped over their shoulders with black camisole straps peeking out around the collar and a brief pair of cuffed jean shorts; the fact that there was nothing else between those shorts and the sandals on their feet except smooth gold-toned skin; the fact that their eyes were the color of a really good glass of brandy with lids that folded back on themselves, currently narrowed in what he suspected was annoyance, pink bow mouth pursed like Leorio was that last minute customer keeping them at the cash register past closing—

All of these facts were observed, noted, and classified in regards to the person standing over him, and they all individually and collectively made Leorio’s blood _boil_.

He couldn’t come up with anything to say, either, and wasn’t really sure what kind of expression he was making—he hoped he looked equally annoyed and even more intimidating, of course, but in reality he probably looked like a three-year-old with a grudge.  Fortunately, Gon existed—and he had _no_ concept of reading the atmosphere.

“Kurapika!  Is that an ice pack?”  Gon’s tuft of black hair appeared in the lower quadrant of Leorio’s peripheral vision, between him and the Mystery Blond.  Not that they were necessarily a mystery anymore, since Gon had said their name a few times now, but Leorio refused to use it until he was introduced properly.

To his deepening chagrin, the blond’s expression softened into a kind of elegantly pleased kindness when they addressed Gon—and they were, in fact, holding a packet wrapped in a dish towel, presumably for Killua’s ankle.  Leorio swallowed back his pride in three massive gulps and willed himself to just do it—be the bigger man.  Or person, rather.

He held out his hand for the ice pack.  “May I?”

Leorio struggled to quantify just how the other’s expression changed—their eyes widened slightly, the set of their jaw loosened, a shadow like curiosity passed over their face.  He kept his expression as neutral as possible, though as the pause stretched and became uncomfortable he thought he felt his eyebrow twitching—maybe three times in total before the blond slowly placed the ice pack into his hand.

Sometime during this process Gon began looking back and forth between the two of them, like he was trying to read their minds or at least figure out what was happening; either he was oblivious to the tension in the air or he was contemplating how to diffuse it.  Just as Leorio finally got a hold of the ice pack, Gon made a noise like recognition and piped, “Is it weird because you haven’t met properly?”

Killua snorted from somewhere near Leorio’s left elbow.  “I’m pretty sure they hate each other.”

“Uh?”  Gon looked back and forth one last time.  “That’s not true, is it?”

“Of course not.”

“Not at all.”

Gon, bless his heart, thumped a fist in his hand with a grin.  “See?  Leorio, this is our friend Kurapika, who sometimes makes us Hot Pockets.”  He gestured to either of them in turn, proudly.  “Kurapika, this is our new friend Leorio, who isn’t a doctor yet but is a nurse assistant.”

“Pleasure.”

“Charmed.”

Leorio’s jaw twitched when they spoke in unison _again_ , and he diverted his attention to the ice and the injury at hand, since if he had to choose he’d rather spend another hour or so spraying Killua with disinfectant than keep looking up at those cool brown eyes.  “Just rest your ankle on top of this.  Try to not move around for a while.  Time it for twenty minutes.”

Killua hummed in annoyance, rearranged his crossed legs so the injured foot was on top of the ice pack, and promptly flopped back onto the grass.  “Bo~oring.  Gon, did you bring your deck?”

“It’s still in my backpack at home.”

“You suck.”

“You left yours, too!”

“We both suck.”

Gon hooked both hands behind his head, still hovering in between Leorio and Kurapika, rocking on his heels with that benign smile on his face.  “I could go get them.  And our sleeping bags.”

“Wait.”  Kurapika’s voice betrayed something approaching panic, mild and diluted as it was, but Leorio was tempted to make a fist in victory regardless.  “Are you guys planning to camp out on my lawn?”

Gon tilted his head back with a grin.  “Is that okay?”

“Well—is that really _necessary?_ ”

Leorio took that opportunity to straighten from his crouch, taking inordinate pleasure in the way Kurapika watched him—the way their head raised level and then slowly tilted back, expression slowly flattening into complete disbelief by the time Leorio was standing straight, a good head taller than them and immensely satisfied.  “Killua should be off his feet for the rest of the day, probably.  If there are crutches handy anywhere around here, he can use one of those to keep the weight off his ankle for the next few days.”

“That means he can’t climb up to the treehouse,” Gon elaborated, up on his tiptoes now, like he was trying to talk at the same level as Leorio.  “Is it okay?  We won’t be any trouble.  I can catch some fish for dinner!”

“Well,” Kurapika started, arms folded across their chest—which was quite flat, Leorio noted, not that that meant anything—mouth pursing as they seemed to think better of whatever they planned to say.  They glanced down at Gon and Killua in turn; and then, strangely, up at Leorio.  He expected to see an impassive expression, something neutral or cold or at least apathetic, but instead there was something like concern tugging at their eyebrows.

Leorio returned the look evenly.   _This is it,_ he thought— _this is where you prove to me whether or not you’re a decent person_. _Moment of truth and all that._

Kurapika’s face turned down and away abruptly.  “All right.  I’ll get some wood for the fire pit.”

Gon flung both fists into the air with an unnecessarily loud whoop, turned, and pounced on Killua without preamble.  Leorio considered being concerned, but decided to ignore Killua yelling something like _I’m injured, dumbass!_ because Kurapika was _looking_ at him again.  Their expression was back to cool neutrality, and Leorio might have been annoyed by it, except then they tilted their head towards the caravan and asked, “Could you give me a hand?”

“Sure.”  He shrugged, figuring that two could play the cool game—and that was _totally_ an adult response.  He didn’t think Kurapika noticed just how nonchalant he was, though, because they just turned and led him alongside the caravan to the rear, squeezing between the picnic table and the silver siding, to where a blue tarp was collecting dust and stray leaves and gravel. Kurapika tugged it aside to reveal a sizeable pile of split logs.  

“Watch out for spiders,” was apparently the only thing Kurapika had to say while they grabbed several pieces and loaded Leorio’s arms up.  That wasn’t exactly comforting, and he wriggled them around a bit, ostensibly seeking a better grip but really trying to detect any kind of movement that might indicate he should drop the wood immediately and maybe run screaming.

He was preoccupied enough with the possibility of spiders that he almost missed the moment when Kurapika paused with a block of wood in one hand and said, “Thank you, for bringing them back here.”

“Eh?”  Leorio forgot about both creepy crawly things and looking nonchalant, blinking through his disbelief.  “Didn’t we just have to convince you to let them stay?”

“Well,” Kurapika started, and looked to the side before Leorio quite caught their expression -- their shoulders slumped a bit, though, so he thought it might be apologetic.  “I had to consider what might happen to them otherwise.  Usually the Manager looks after them, but he’s away for the weekend, so.  I guess it’s fortunate you were around.”

Leorio opened his mouth to say something, and he wasn’t sure what it might be, but he was thinking about the fact that Kurapika was the one who told him about the store at the crossroads and how to get to it, about how otherwise he might not have come across Gon and Killua to begin with—and his brain stuck on something about fate and coincidence just before screeching to a halt because _something was scurrying up the piece of wood in Kurapika’s hand_ and he made an embarrassingly high pitched noise of alarm instead.

Kurapika moved in a way that Leorio could never describe, later—it was too fast, blurred black in his vision, and all he was certain about was that it ended with a whiplash stomp on the dusty ground that was eerie and vicious and made the back of his neck prickle.

A moment later, though, Kurapika was handing wood over with a placid smile, the first positive expression they’d turned in Leorio’s direction.  “Here you go.  Spider-free.”  

Leorio blinked a lot, but not quite from disbelief.

 

 

Gon stopped tackling Killua in fairly short order, because even injured he had an uncanny way of getting Gon in a headlock and shoving a knee into just the right part of his back so that he squealed uncle until Killua let him go.  The grass was warm against his skin, the sun blazing bright overhead—it was already afternoon, and the air was heating rapidly without a breeze to cut through it.  He held up one hand in front of his eyes, fingers spread apart so the light splayed between them, and watched Killua shuffle around in place at his side.

He was looking over his shoulder, towards the back of the caravan where Leorio and Kurapika had gone, and when he turned back there was a wicked enough expression on his face that Gon knew what he was going to pull out of his pocket before he saw it.

“Killua.”  Gon drew out the u sound to make the name an admonishment.

“I’ll give it back!  There’s no money inside, anyway.”  Killua flipped the worn leather wallet around to show him, and an identification badge tumbled out onto the grass.  Gon picked it up, examined the plastic sleeve and the worn printed surface, murmuring _Zaban Valley Life Care_ under his breath.  Leorio’s picture was there, flaking around the edges a bit, but recognizable.  “What does CNA mean?”

“Certified nursing assistant.”  Killua finished digging through the contents and pulled something free with a frown, twisting the card around like he expected to see a punchline on the opposite side.  “What’s with this driver’s license?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t think it’s his.”

“Let me see!”  Gon rolled over and grabbed for the card just as Leorio’s voice emerged from behind the caravan.  Killua hissed _fuck_ under his breath (“Stop cussing!”) and scrambled to shove the cards back into the wallet and shove the wallet itself back into his pocket.  Gon stayed where he was on the grass, face down, pouting at Killua until he mouthed _I’ll give it back_ , then continued pouting until he offered a pinky swear.

“Nothing we haven’t done before,” Killua grumbled, rearranging the ice against his ankle, legs crossed, propping his chin in one hand so he could look properly petulant.

“But not from someone who helped us.”  Gon tugged at Killua’s pinky until his stare swiveled back over to him from the netherspace near the caravan door.  “Deal?”

“Deal.”

“I’m gonna go get our stuff from the treehouse.”  Gon made the announcement loud enough the other two could hear, pushing up to his feet in one fluid movement.  “Sleeping bags, backpacks, whatever food we have.  And I’ll catch enough fish for everyone.”

Killua looked up at him with his head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed.  “Can you carry all of that yourself?”

Gon gave that due consideration with a hand on his chin, and got as far as picturing himself doubling up the backpacks and shoving his arms through the sleeping bag cords so they hung off him like wings when a much better plan sprung to mind.  “Leorio!”

He yelled the name loud enough that the man in question dropped the remaining wood out of his arms into an unkempt pile by the fire pit.  “What?”

“Help me get our stuff from the treehouse!”

“Uhh…”

“Also catch fish!”

Leorio took a stance with his hands on his hips, which Gon interpreted as his attempt to be very important and adult-like.  “Before running into you two, I was actually trying to get to a pay phone so I can call someone to pick me up.”

“But you helped us instead,” Gon said in his most reasonable tone of voice, mimicking Leorio’s stance.  “I can’t bring everything back myself, and I’m not going to leave Killua here alone, so now I need you to come with me.”

Leorio’s expression soured, either at the idea that he was now obligated to continue helping Gon until he was satisfied or perhaps because Kurapika was now scoffing at his incompetence and restacking the wood they brought over.

“If you do it,” Gon continued, idea popping to mind like a lightbulb over his head, “then tomorrow I’ll help you get to the crossroads.”

Leorio seemed to be considering that with some difficulty, head tilted back and a terse noise emitting from his nose, visibly warring between very mature hyper-confidence in the face of Gon’s insistence and just giving in because it was probably easier and more reasonable.  Gon started to worry that the former might win out, but then Killua, being himself, said helpfully:

“Don’t bother, the old man will just throw out his back carrying our stuff.”

Roughly ten minutes later, Gon was propping his bike up against the trailer hitch of Kurapika’s caravan, Leorio was loudly grumbling while securing his belongings in the old red truck across the drive, and Killua was curled in a ball on the grass in mortal fear of having his foot amputated.

Kurapika looked somewhat worse for wear, like he was seriously rethinking having agreed to all of this, arms folded and bristling, standing in front of the caravan door like he expected someone to try and force their way in.  Gon approached him with his hands folded primly behind his back, offering his most benign smile.  “It’ll be okay.  They’ll learn to get along eventually.”

“I suppose.”

“If we’re really too much trouble, we can go stay with Netero if Killua isn’t better by Monday.”

“Ahh,” Kurapika started, then tilted his head to the side like he was embarrassed.  “It’s fine, I’m just… not used to company.”

Gon considered that he’d always known which trailer Kurapika lived in, even before he knew his name, even before he knew this was the trailer his caseworker always visited when she showed up at the RV park to try and coax him to return to the city.  How he’d always known Kurapika by sight even before that afternoon when he and Killua were playing Keep-Away with Netero outside the central building—when Kurapika stepped out through the broken door with a laundry basket against his hip and Netero called out to him and asked if he had anything he could give the boys for lunch.

He was cool and reluctant but didn’t refuse, and Gon knew immediately that he was kinder than he wanted anyone to think.

Gon rocked back on his heels, grinning brightly.  “Maybe it’s time to get used to it, huh?”

Kurapika didn’t respond for a long moment, still looking to one side, then his shoulders shifted and he glanced across the drive to where Leorio was shoving the truck door closed and continuing to make a great show of his displeasure.  “Maybe,” he murmured finally, but Gon didn’t like the way his eyebrows drew together: in concern or discomfort, or maybe both.

 

 

The walk to the treehouse, on top of every other place Leorio had walked (or attempted to walk) on that particular day, made him glad that he was in the habit of just wearing nurse sneakers constantly.  There was no reason not to, when being on his feet for god knew how long of a shift segued into being on his feet running halfway across campus most days.  Comfortable shoes were necessary, whether he was wearing scrubs, casual duds, or a proper suit.

Gon made most of the trip on a mysterious energy high that largely involved running in circles around him and then running a certain measured distance ahead (what measurement, he couldn’t say) and doubling back.  He only slowed down once they’d left the eastbound road at a dead end and were making their way through tall yellow grass along what might once have been a deer path, widened and demarcated by the frequent passage of feet and bike tires, imprinted into the dirt.  He could hear the distant rush of water by then, smell something damp in the air, and Gon slowed down enough to lead the way a comfortable distance in front of him, talking animatedly over his shoulder.

“I think you’re the first person who’s been this way, other than me and Killua.  I’m pretty sure most people at the park know how to get here, though, they just never have a reason to come out here.”

Talking about the treehouse reminded Leorio of his other concerns regarding Gon and his friend, other than the more immediate ones related to injury, food, and supervision.  “You said that your dad was around sometimes, is that right?  Does he know where you are?”

“Well, of course!”  Gon cast a grin back at him.  “He always does, but he travels around a lot, working.  Everyone at the RV park knows him and how important he is, so they make sure I’m okay by myself.  Although now I have Killua, so I’m not really by myself.”

Leorio made a dubious noise, one hand in his pocket, the other idly batting aside a low-hanging branch from the bushes starting to line the path, which still weren't low enough to hamper Gon.  “You said you’d only been here for a few months.  Were you here by yourself for longer than that?”

“Well, no.  I go live in the city sometimes, when my caseworker convinces me to go back and stay in a foster home.  She’s a nice lady, so I feel guilty because she has to go out of her way to find me.  I always get bored after a while, though.  Especially with school.  This time Killua wanted to come with me when I left, though, so now it’s almost like I have my own family.”  Gon twisted around on his toes when Leorio stopped in his tracks, confused.  “Is that not okay?”

“Gon,” Leorio started seriously, trying to keep his voice soft and concerned rather than slightly alarmed—more than slightly, in fact.  “Did Killua run away from home?”

Gon turned to face him, both feet planted firmly in the earth, arms straight at his sides, and stared up at Leorio with that same expression as earlier, the one that made him wonder if he really knew what he was dealing with.  “I told you,” he said firmly, “Killua can’t go back to his house.”

Leorio had an inkling, like a sour grumble in the pit of his stomach—he’d trained for this sort of thing, in the CNA course, working at hospital internships, learning to notice the signs.  The way kids would talk bout certain things and avoid certain things.  Leorio stretched his arms out, sank down into a crouch so he was at eye-level with Gon, forearms resting loose on his knees.  “Can you tell me why?”

“I promised I wouldn’t.”

“Okay.”  Leorio didn’t push; he could respect that Gon was just upholding his own principles.  Some kids his age didn’t have any.  “You know I can probably guess what it is, though.”

Gon frowned furiously at the ground.

“I won’t make you tell me and I won’t say anything about it to him, but I think you should consider whether this is the best way to deal with his situation.”  Leorio brought his hands together, fingers lacing.  “Can you do that?”

Gon shifted his weight to one side, kicked his foot at the dirt beneath him.  “All right.  If all you’re asking me is to think about it.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

“Okay.”  Gon seemed content with that, turning to continue along the path as Leorio got back to his feet with a grunt.  A few steps along, though, and he abruptly spun on his heel and pointed directly at Leorio’s face.  “You better not be planning to call someone about us!”

Leorio held up both hands, nearly taking a step back just with the force of that accusation.  “I’m not really able to call anyone at this point, so…”

“You better not.  If you do, I know how to hide so that you’ll never find us.  I’ll know if you try!”

“Okay, I got it.  I won’t call anyone.”

Gon remained in place for another second or two, staring like he was searching Leorio’s posture and expression for any sign that he might be lying.  After those few extra seconds, he dropped his arm, apparently satisfied with whatever he saw, and turned back to jog down the trail, chiming, “Okay!” over his shoulder.

The brush ended several yards further along and the ground sank down sharply, giving way a few feet and then broadening in a green sweep along the riverbank.  Gon skittered through the dirt in front of him without pause and ran across the floodplain towards a stately oak tree that loomed tall overhead.  Leorio was more cautious, finding footholds in the embankment and picking his way down it.  Like hell he was going to jump or something, and twist his ankle, and have to spend the rest of the weekend sitting on Kurapika’s front lawn with Killua, that little shit.  He dusted his hands off at the bottom and looked around, but Gon seemed to have disappeared.

It wasn’t hard to guess where.  Part of the oak tree stretched out over the river, but there was a treehouse perched on the side that didn’t, in the lowest branches.  The main body of it was fairly standard: a large box with cloth-covered windows and a slanted aluminum roof set on a platform that extended out from the interior on either side.  The leftmost platform had a rope ladder leading up to a higher platform, only partially enclosed, which he guessed was a kind of lookout.  On the other side, a rope swing attached to the largest branch that extended out over the river, the end of it secured to the trunk near the wooden slats leading up to the treehouse proper.

Leorio approached it with his head tilted back, suitably impressed; he could hardly blame the two boys for camping out here for however long they could get away with.  Like an eternal summer vacation idealized in a movie from two decades ago.  The reality, he figured, would be much harsher—sooner or later things were going to go wrong for them.  One or both of them would get tired of scrounging, would want to live in a warm house with someone who would feed them and take care of them.  Sooner or later the novelty was going to wear off.

The cloth covering one of the windows moved aside and Gon’s face appeared in it.  “Hey!  If I toss things down, can you catch them?”

“As long as you don’t have a piano up there, sure.”  Leorio stopped gawking and broke into a jog so he could stand beneath the platform. Closer up, some details came into focus that made him pause and squint, shoving his glasses up his nose with one finger.  It looked like there was a symbol etched into the wood on the underside of the treehouse, and as he gave the structure a more thorough examination, there were smaller ones here and there around the platform, under the lookout tower, in the bark of the tree itself.  Near the base of the trunk a small bag of some kind had been nailed into the wood, and Leorio was about to take a closer look when Gon’s voice called out again from overhead.

“Okay, sleeping bags first!”  He wriggled his way out through a small spring-loaded door that flapped shut and banged against the walls a few times before coming to rest, a bundle under each arm.  “Ready?”

“Do your worst,” Leorio called back, and immediately regretted it when both sleeping bags, rolled up with pillows in the center, came flying at him at once.  He stumbled trying to catch them both and fell backwards onto the grass, Gon laughing somewhere above him.  “Not fair!”

Gon was inordinately pleased with himself, but relented.  “Alright, I’ll do the backpacks one at a time.”

Leorio figured that much was fortunate, since both of the backpacks in question were loaded and dropped like bricks.  Gon seemed to rethink a few things after tossing down the second of the two, and reappeared after another minute with a tackle box and a length of rope.  Leorio had almost forgotten about the fishing element of this venture.

Gon definitely had not, and roughly ten minutes later Leorio found himself standing on the riverbank with a bucket and a net and his toes nearly in the water, fishing rod thrust into his hands, listening to Gon babble about how Killua hated having to bait the hook and he’d just gotten in the habit of automatically doing it himself, so Leorio was lucky.  Leorio agreed, leery of the wriggling grub in Gon’s fingers, relieved when the line was ready to cast and he didn’t have to watch it squirm around anymore.

The opposite riverbank was taken over by a copse of white-barked aspen trees, leaves rattling like rain spattering on concrete at the slightest stirring of wind.   The air smelled fresh and damp, and the afternoon sun was warm.  It was silent other than the trees, the river, and a few chirping birds for almost twenty minutes before Leorio turned the reel on his fishing rod and murmured, “I don’t think I’ve done this since I was a kid.”

Gon made a humming sound, far more attentive to what he was doing than to the beauty of nature surrounding him.  “Did you learn from your dad?  My dad taught me.”

“My mom, actually.  She was more of the type to sneak out of the house early on a Sunday morning and take me to fish off the docks.”  With a thermos full of coffee and a box of donuts and a blanket to wrap him up in if he got cold or tired.

“So it’s not just a father-son kind of thing!”

Leorio’s mouth turned sideways, and he got distracted watching the shivering leaves of the aspens across the river.  Not quite willing to voice the response _well, I wasn’t exactly his_ son _at the time_.

“Leorio, reel in your line or it’s gonna tangle with mine.”

“Ahh, right.”  Leorio straightened to attention and cranked the reel until his bobber wasn’t in danger of drifting past Gon’s with the current.

Gon got a bite a minute later.  And then another.  And then a third, and just as he was reeling it in Leorio’s bobber finally gave a bounce.  The trout he caught was smaller than all three of Gon’s, but Gon was apparently too thrilled that they had enough for everyone and could head back to the park to notice or care.

Once the fishing tackle was stowed back in the treehouse, they split the backpacks and sleeping bags between the two of them and started back.  Gon clambered up the embankment first, light-footed, and took some of the cargo out of Leorio’s arms so he could follow—and that was when he noticed that some of the tree roots keeping the bank from eroding had those same symbols carved into them as he’d seen on the treehouse.

The bewildered croak Leorio made must have been obvious enough that Gon needed only to peer over the edge and then promptly offer an explanation.  “Oh, those.  My dad did that.  They’re all over, in a big circle around the treehouse.”

“What are they?”

“Runes,” Gon said, like he was talking about cake ingredients, and reached down to give Leorio a hand up.  “For protection.”

Leorio tumbled ungracefully over the edge, onto the dusty trail, and spent several seconds trying to beat the dirt off of the knees of his slacks before asking, “Protection from what?”

Gon shrugged.  “Everything.”

Leorio gathered up the sleeping bag and the bucket of fish (one of which was still wriggling, and he tried not to think about it), and followed Gon as he disappeared down the path, muttering.

_Everything, huh_.

 

 

From a distance, Leorio could see that both Killua and Kurapika were sitting on the lawn, hunched over something on a low table that resolved into a chessboard as they approached.  The caravan's awning had been pulled out, a simple blue sheet that propped itself against the silver metal siding and threw a decent amount of shade across the grass.  Killua took a move while Leorio was still too far away to see the specifics of what was happening on the board, but he sat back with a grin immediately after, and Kurapika was staring at the pieces intensely with one hand on their chin.

Gon called out and waved his one free hand fiercely once they were in range and predictably ran the remainder of the distance, tumbling into the grass and dropping his cargo carelessly around the area.  He seemed interested in the game that was happening at first, but it was short-lived—by the time Leorio caught up, feet crunching through the gravel drive, Gon was back on his feet and talking about fish.

Kurapika was prepared, and handed him a plastic garbage bag, a fillet knife, and a heavy paper plate.  "You can clean them over by the water pump.  Take the guts straight to the trash bin around back."

"And don't leave the heads on, this time," Killua added as Gon grabbed up the bucket from Leorio and darted away.  "I don't want my food to look back at me."

Both of them immediately returned all attention to the game as soon as Gon was dealt with, so Leorio took it upon himself to neatly stack the sleeping bags and backpacks out of the way alongside the trailer.  Nothing seemed to have changed by that point, except Killua's grin was slightly broader and Kurapika looked slightly more frustrated.  Some kindling, newspaper and matches had been set on the picnic table, so Leorio switched from tidying up to getting a fire going, which took at least ten minutes, intermittently interrupted by Gon yelling back inappropriate questions about fish guts.

( _This one has an egg sac!  Should we keep them?_ )

( _NO GON THAT IS QUITE ALL RIGHT_ )

When Leorio returned to stand above the game board and the two players surrounding it, he found that no additional moves had been made, Killua was leaning back on his hands with his shoulders hunched around his ears looking infinitely pleased, and Kurapika's mouth was pursed into a tight white line, eyebrows bunching together in a fierce knot.  Leorio debated whether he was better off removing himself from the area entirely until the game was over.  Just as he took a step back, though, Kurapika straightened abruptly, eyes widening, and with a surprised "Ah!" they grabbed up what looked like a bishop and moved it across the board.  Leorio would have required several more minutes of staring at the layout and figuring out what happened to determine what was going on, but was satisfied enough when Killua looked over at the move curiously, then made a strangled noise.

"Checkmate," Kurapika announced, and climbed to their feet.

"How did you—aaaaaaaagh, no, my defenses were perfect!"  Killua flung himself back onto the grass dramatically, arms crossed over his face.

"Don't be a sore loser.  Go help Gon clean the fish or something."

"Oh, you know, I totally would," Killua said from under the crook of his arm and didn't bother sounding like he was even remotely sincere, "but I can't possibly get over there on this ankle.  Doctor's orders."

"Then at least put the pieces away."  Kurapika had the screen door to the caravan partway open, and seemed to notice Leorio's presence for the first time, looking him up and down as though ascertaining whether he was the same person who had left—or maybe just noting how much dust he'd accumulated since then.  "Leorio.  Hold on a moment."

Kurapika disappeared into the caravan and was gone for long enough that Killua finished packing up the chess pieces and moved on to reach across the grass and grab his backpack.  He accumulated a small pile of clothes, comics and yo-yos around himself as he dug through it, and Leorio began to question his life choices and why he was still standing here, just because Kurapika had told him to wait—and why the hell he was still here _at all_ when a trip down the road would most likely yield a pay phone and/or a ride home.

Something about Gon's sincerity was weighing on him, he supposed.  Something about Killua's bravado.  And something about Kurapika that had nothing to do with Leorio’s inability to categorize them as anything in particular.

In any case, Leorio was tired of standing and waiting, so when Gon shouted over, "I'm just gonna go for it and fillet all four of them," he called back, "Yes, please do that," without giving much thought to fish or how much Gon chose to cut them up.  He took three steps towards the screen door and pulled it open, intending to ask if he could help with anything.

Kurapika appeared in the doorway immediately, arms loaded with kitchenware and condiments nearly to their chin, radiating displeasure like a furnace.  " _Don't._ "

Leorio stepped back, holding the door gingerly while Kurapika descended the stairs, letting go immediately when they elbowed it out of his hand and firmly pushed it closed behind them.  Kurapika's expression was stern, not quite angry, but Leorio anticipated that something scathing would emerge from their mouth regardless.

They seemed to think better of it at the last moment, though, and just let out a breath that made Leorio think of someone ten or twenty times their age, an old and troubled exhaustion.  "Please don't go inside without my permission."

And all Leorio could say in response, hands slightly raised from his side like he felt he might need to ward something off, was, "Oh.  All right."

"Thank you."  Kurapika's look softened into something that was still guarded but definitely more contemplative, just for a moment—then they grabbed a green mesh bag weighed down with four large potatoes from the top of the precarious pile in their arms and handed it to him.  "Would you go scrub these?"

"Sure."

Leorio had to admit that he felt slightly safer at the water pump with Gon, even though he was merrily slicing up and deboning fish with the kind of vigor most kids reserved for decorating sugar cookies.  Leorio crouched down at his side and tried to maintain the pressure of the water spigot at only a slight deluge, washing the potatoes with his hands and the mesh bag they'd come in for lack of any other option. .

Gon grinned over his shoulder.  "Are you two getting along?"

Leorio cast a glance back at the picnic table, where Kurapika had set everything down and was setting up a freestanding grill over the fire pit.  "I can't make heads or tails of this."

Gon nodded sagely, humming, carefully picking the bones out of a fillet with his knife.  "My favorite foster mom used to say, if you want to understand someone, try to understand what they're upset about."

"Hm."  Leorio returned his attention to the potatoes, the ridiculously cold water, and his rapidly numbing fingers.  It wasn't so much that Kurapika acted like they felt intruded upon, considering how accommodating they were—entertaining Killua while he and Gon were away, providing their own food and supplies for dinner, making an effort towards ensuring everyone's comfort.

No, there was something else happening here, something behind Kurapika being defensive and simultaneously thanking him for bringing the kids here.  If he thought about it, really gave this entire situation due consideration, that _something_ was hovering at the edges of everything else that was going on, too.

He wasn't sure what that something was, but it made him uneasy.

Leorio finished washing just as Gon finished slicing, so they walked over to the fire pit together.  Kurapika had clipped a plastic tablecloth over the picnic table and was chopping some scallions when they got there, a small pile of condiments and a package of foil surrounding them.  The smile they turned to Gon when he presented his plate of perfectly filleted trout was so sunny that Leorio felt blindsided, especially when it remained on their face for Leorio and his potatoes as well.  He wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself, hands dripping, glasses slipping on his nose, and it was a relief to be handed a fork and the roll of foil and instructed to dock them and wrap them up.

_Who_ are _you_ , Leorio asked Kurapika silently in his head for the first time, but not nearly the last.

After delivering his fish, Gon ran off to dig through his backpack, thoughts on a completely different track.  Killua was lying on his back in the grass, head propped on a sleeping bag, thumbing through a deck of cards, occasionally pulling one out and dropping it on his chest.

So there was really nothing for it other than to sit at the table, across from Kurapika, and start stabbing the potatoes with the fork.  Kurapika had spread out a length of foil and drizzled it with oil, and was laying out the fillets across it, close together.  Leorio paid far too much attention to this process and nearly stabbed himself with the fork.  “So, uh.  Thanks for killing the spider earlier.”

Kurapika sputtered out a laugh that made their eyes squint up, which in turn made something twist in Leorio’s stomach.  “That’s quite a conversation starter.”

“Well, I’m making an effort at least.”  Leorio didn’t think he should feel so embarrassed about it, either, but he did, and he looked sideways to pretend otherwise.  Gon had apparently found whatever thing (or several things, judging by the number of items he was juggling between his hands) he was looking for in his backpack and now appeared to have a compass.  He stared at it, turning in place and looking around as though he expected to find something in particular.  “It could have been poisonous, for all I knew.  I could have died.  Hypothetically speaking, you saved my life.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch, considering even poisonous spider bites are almost never lethal to healthy adults.”

“Well—”

“Which you should know, medical student.”

“Yes, but in an extreme case, ambulance service to this area wouldn’t be quick, and any complications could prove deadly.”

“I suppose,” Kurapika said reluctantly, but they seemed too amused for Leorio to buy it.

He’d moved on to wrapping the potatoes up in foil while Kurapika made what appeared to be very difficult decisions about spices when Gon ran past the table and out to a point several feet from the rear of the caravan.  He stood there with the compass in hand, turning slightly, looking back over his shoulder a few times, and then bent down and shoved a stick into the dirt.  He pulled it back out, dropped something into the hole he’d made, and replaced the stick, then ran around the side of the caravan and out of sight.

“What is he doing?”

Kurapika looked up from their spice conundrum and then followed Leorio’s stare over to the stick.  If they understood what was happening, though, they didn’t bother sharing, turning back to the fish and making a final decision about the paprika.  “Something he probably should have asked about first, but it’s fine.”

Leorio opened his mouth to demand some kind of clarification and immediately reconsidered, thinking that maybe what Gon said earlier at the water pump was a subtle suggestion to respect whatever Kurapika chose to keep private.  His confusion only grew, however, when a moment later Gon reappeared at the other end of the caravan, dragging a longer stick along the ground in a broad sweep to where another stick was driven into the ground near the edge of the gravel drive.  He pulled it up as he went, continuing around to the furthest end of the lawn just past the water pump, drawing a huge circle in the dirt all the way around the lot.

Leorio turned to Killua at that point.  “Seriously, what is he doing?”

Killua gave a cursory glance up from his cards just in time to see Gon pause to grab another stick out of the ground, and immediately lost interest.  “Who knows.”

“Leorio,” Kurapika said, in a tone meant to draw his attention back to the task at hand.  “Put the potatoes in the fire pit, close to the coals but not _in_ them.”

As such, he never found out what Gon was doing, too distracted with arguing with Kurapika over how long the potatoes needed to sit banked in the hot ashes, how often they should be turned and how long it would take for them to cook properly.  By the time everything was hot and ready to eat and the four of them were sitting down around the picnic table like a proper nuclear family on a harmless camping trip, the sun was drooping red over the horizon and Leorio realized, belatedly, that he couldn’t remember the last time he ate.  Killua commented again on the lack of fish heads and Gon started making bug-eyed faces at him.  Kurapika laughed behind their hand and Leorio tried to distract himself by loading up his baked potato with as much butter and sour cream as he could stand in hopes of making up for the huge calorie deficit he was experiencing.  And to avoid thinking about how cute that laugh was.

He resigned himself to another night of sleeping in the truck bed, once the food was eaten and the last evening glow of the sun was gone.  Gon and Killua had gone to ground in a nest of sleeping bags and discarded socks and Pokemon cards, both of their heads buried in the same comic book.  Kurapika had gathered up everything off the picnic table and gone back into the caravan, and Leorio didn’t expect to see them again before morning, so he walked back across the drive to the old red pickup, yawning, in great and almost gleeful anticipation of finally removing the goddamn binder that had been digging into his armpits all day.

Of course, no sooner had he climbed into the truck bed and unrolled the sleeping bag than he heard Gon’s voice calling his name.

The boy himself was standing just at the edge of the gravel, around where he’d driven one of his sticks into the ground earlier, if Leorio remembered correctly, and he hovered there for several seconds looking back and forth like he expected a car to come careening down the dirt road at any moment.  Ultimately he seemed to make a decision and hopped across the dusty ruts, then directly onto the tailgate, like he was playing a private game of The Ground Is Lava.  “Hi!”

“Hi.  Did you need something?”

“You should sleep on the lawn with us.”

Leorio figured he should be used to Gon saying odd things with direct seriousness after spending most of the preceding day with him.  “I should?”

“Yes.  I mean, the truck is okay and you’ll probably be fine here, but the grass is more comfortable to sleep on, don’t you think?”

“Well… yeah, probably.”

Gon stared at him expectantly.

“Okay.  Okay, fine.”  Leorio opted to not argue, since the kid had a point and it really was no skin off his back to change locations; the only not so minor difficulty it presented was being able to strip without inadvertently coming out to everyone in the immediate vicinity.

Regardless, he grabbed up his meager worldly possessions (as he’d come to think of them, consisting entirely of his briefcase and sleeping bag) and hauled them across the dirt track and onto Kurapika’s lawn.  His solution to the more pressing problem he was having ended up being lying quietly in his bag spread out near the picnic table, until the whispered arguments and low giggling from the preteen boy nest died down into vague snoring.  He was then able to unzip his sleeping bag partway, check that the blinds were drawn on the caravan windows overhead, and wriggle out of both shirt and binder like an overzealous caterpillar.

He lay there for a few moments with his arms splayed in uncompressed bliss and of course, of- _fucking_ -course, that was when the door to the caravan squeaked open.

Leorio yanked the zipper up all the way to the top, until he was only visible from the nose up.  He’d already taken off his glasses and set them aside on his briefcase, so Kurapika tiptoeing down the metal steps was little more than a vague blur, and Leorio only figured out what they were carrying when they paused next to the nest and spread out a blanket over the two sleeping boys.  They lingered there for a long moment, while Leorio silently willed them to turn around and go back inside so he could stop panicking.

But, naturally, they didn’t do that, and instead turned towards Leorio with something red in their arms that slowly resolved into a pillow as they got closer and his depth perception started working.

Kurapika crouched down maybe a foot from his elbow, features distinct enough in Leorio’s vision that he could make out a faint smile, and whispered, “You’re still awake.”

“It’s not exactly five-star accommodations here.  Somewhat lacking in down pillows and feather beds.”

“Well, here’s _a_ pillow, at least, even if it’s not down.”  Kurapika handed over the blurry red lump, and Leorio very carefully pulled an arm out from the sleeping bag to grab it and stuff it under his head.  He managed to do so while only exposing one shoulder, and Kurapika seemed to realize that he was shirtless and politely looked away until he was settled again.

Leorio couldn’t swear to whether he’d seen a hint of a blush on their cheeks, without his glasses.  But there might have been.  Maybe.

“I’m sorry you weren’t able to get home to your own bed tonight,” Kurapika said, still looking away towards the skyline visible past the edge of the awning.  A scatter of stars were unusually bright in the sky, free from the light pollution of the city, the largest ones distinct enough that Leorio could just make them out.   “At least you’ll have a nice view.”

Leorio felt a kind of knee-jerk need to say _I have a pretty nice view right now_ , regardless of how low-resolution it was and how cheesy that line would sound in his mouth, and maybe it was fortunate that the words stuck somewhere in his throat—because what purpose could there possibly be for hitting on a very attractive gender-indeterminate shut-in living in a brokedown RV park in the middle of nowhere, which he fully intended to escape as soon as possible so he could get back to his own life and all of its very immediate problems?

It was still a nice view.

“Thank you,” Leorio said, sort of like Kurapika had said _thank you_ when Leorio agreed to not try and go into the caravan again.

And Kurapika left with a murmured, “Get some sleep,” which was probably the warmest thing they’d said to him so far, but Leorio didn’t sleep at all for a long time after that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Is that what it means, to be an adult?” Kurapika asked after a long pause, more challenging than contemplative. “Or is that what it means to be alone? Adults don’t always know better than children just because they’re adults. Those two know how to take care of each other and are more capable of doing so than either of their biological parents.” They took a final drink of their coffee and set it down by their hip, next to the sugar bowl, hand lingering there around the rim as their voice lowered. “So what does that say about us?”_  
> 
> In which Bisuke is on the case and Leorio and Kurapika have coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually more indicative of the average chapter length for this fic. Props to everyone who slogged through the previous one. *salutes* Today Bisuke appears along with Melody and *gasp* the Plot! Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Thanks to reeology and adulterclavis for beta-reading.

>   _Drinking wine and thinking bliss is on the other side of this_  
>  _I just need a compass and a willing accomplice_  
>  _All the doubts that fill my head cascading up and down again_  
>  _Up and down and round again, down and up and down again_
> 
> _Oh, I've had my chances, and I've taken them all_

* * *

Bisuke had just tapped the spoon on the edge of her coffee mug when her phone rang.

The light brown liquid was still swirling around the interior, cream foaming in the center, perfectly sweetened and waiting for her to take that first invigorating sip.  Instead, she sighed heavily, stuck the spoon in her mouth, and reached around the side of her stool to dig at the handbag slung over the backrest.

The cafe was relatively empty for 7:30 in the morning.  The commuters were busy commuting, she supposed, which was technically what she was supposed to be doing, too, but no one ought to notice that it _wasn’t_ what she was doing for another half hour—and by then she hoped to be at least four cups more caffeinated and working through a spinach and havarti omelet.  The handbag search was half-hearted until it became clear that the caller wasn’t going to give up and leave a voicemail; her phone's infuriatingly merry jangling continued until she yanked the pink-plastic-covered device free and the racket resolved into the introductory strains of a pop song.  The screen revealed that it was Melody calling, probably because her slacker senses were tingling long before 8 o’clock rolled around, so Bisuke didn’t bother taking the spoon out of her mouth before answering with a bored, “Morning.”

“Tell Wing to turn on the news.”

“Ehhh,” Bisuke grumbled around the spoon, not bothering to ask how Melody knew she was at the cafe, because it was obvious.  She checked up and down the length of the polished oak bar, but the proprietor was still back in the kitchen.  Hopefully making her omelet.

Melody’s delicate, airy voice was unusually insistent over the line.  “Quickly.  Channel 7.”

Bisuke finally pulled the spoon out of her mouth so she could call out to the boy bussing the table at the far end of the cafe.  “Zushi, can you turn the TV on?”

The boy all but jumped to attention and scurried around the bar to grab the remote.  The screen mounted over the espresso machine blinked to life, showing a baseball game in progress, and Bisuke waved one hand dismissively.  “Channel 7.”

The screen blinked again, switching to a panning camera shot of a gaping black hole in the side of a stately mansion, surrounded by police, detectives, and even a few military uniforms.

“—unsure about the nature of the explosion, other than that it occurred in the basement and destroyed the lower quarter of the east side of the building,” a prim female newscaster's voice explained, and the spoon in Biskue’s hand hit the wooden countertop with a clatter.  “Neighbors immediately called emergency services after the explosion early this morning, and the Zoldyck manor, once considered a stronghold for organized crime and untouchable by local law enforcement, is now vulnerable to investigation.”

The shot cut to the Zaban City chief of police, hands on his hips, speaking into a cluster of microphones.  “This is an opportunity for officers at various levels of law enforcement to search for evidence on the premises, as there is clear and dangerous criminal activity on site, which outpaces probable cause.  The investigation into the cause of the explosion is ongoing.”  A swarm of questions followed his statement, and the Chief continued, “Two of the Zoldyck family have been taken into custody, and the whereabouts of the others remain unknown.  We believe that Mr. and Mrs. Zoldyck were away from the house at the time of the incident and have not yet returned in an attempt to avoid arrest.  We ask that anyone with information—”

Bisuke stopped listening when the display switched to pictures of the Zoldyck parents and a phone number to call, turning back to face her coffee and murmur, “Oh my god,” into the phone.

“I’m at the office.  I’m going to get your clearance to investigate from management right now.”

“Can we do that?”  She jerked her head up, glancing back at the screen to see an interview with some eyewitnesses: a neighbor couple with too many rings, the woman clutching a well-groomed schnauzer against her chest.

“We know for a fact there were at least two underage children in that house.  It’s well within our jurisdiction.  I hope you have your ID.”

“Ahaha,” Bisuke laughed a little too brightly, waving one hand idly in the air.  “Of course I do.  It’s in my glove box.  I think.”

Melody made a low, musical humming sound that generally meant she knew bullshit when she heard it.  “I’ll text you with your authorization.  You might want to hurry your breakfast, though; there’s no telling how long they’ll hold the scene open.”

By the time Bisuke finished her reassurances and thank-you’s and thumbed the call to end, a steaming plate of egg-wrapped deliciousness had been plunked down at her elbow.  Wing hovered above it, wiping his hands on a bar towel, glasses slightly fogged from the heat in the kitchen.  He watched the television for a moment with a blank expression, leaning back against the counter, then tossed the towel over his shoulder.  “They finally made a mistake.”

“Yep.”  Bisuke took Melody’s advice and didn’t waste any time digging in.

“Are you going?”

“As soon as I’m done here.”  She gestured in Wing’s general direction with a fork.  “Could you do a quick spread for me?”

“Of course.”  Wing pushed away from the bar and took his time returning, greeting another customer as they entered and setting them up at the far side of the bar, giving instructions to Zushi, and only coming back when Bisuke had enough time to eat, coffee pot in one hand and a cloth-wrapped deck of cards in the other.

“I’ll do a three-card spread: you, the situation at hand, and the outcome.  What’s your inquiry?” he asked while Bisuke dosed her fresh mug with sugar and cream.

She pondered for a span of seconds while Wing shuffled the cards.  “Should I anticipate danger or success?”

“That’s very prudent.”  He set the cards in the center of the cloth for her to cut.  “Personal or professional?”

She plucked the top half of the deck and set it to the side, then the bottom and set it crosswise on top.  “Both.”

“Nine of wands,” Wing reported, flipping the first card over.  “Not the best situation to find yourself in, but not necessarily bad, either.  You’re going to face opposition, but—”

“I expected as much.”

“Exactly, and you’re not going to waver, being yourself.  Next—” the card flicked unnaturally loud against Wing’s fingers.  “The Moon.”

The pause that followed was far too long and Bisuke felt her stomach sinking into her toes.  “That’s bad, isn’t it.”

“It could be.”  Wing stared down at the two cards, hand on his chin, then adjusted his glasses with decision.  “This indicates an unrevealed threat.  It may not emerge to face you right now.  I don’t think you’re going to find what you’re looking for when you go to investigate today, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find anything of use.”

Bisuke grumbled to herself, pushing her face into her coffee mug and watching Wing continue over the rim.  He drew the last card, eyes widening as he turned it over in his hand, then an enigmatic smile flitted across his face.  She lowered the mug with a thump.  “What?”

He set the card down at the end of the spread with a low snap.  “The page of pentacles, reversed.”  His smile tilted towards her when she didn’t respond.  “A prodigal child.”

Bisuke shot up straight in her seat.  “Oh my god.  Oh my god, that’s perfect!”  She reached across the bar, grabbed Wing by the chin and kissed both his cheeks without preamble before practically leaping from her seat.  “That’s so perfect, thank you so much!”

Wing made a noise kind of like a parrot squawking, both hands up in front of him, glasses askew on his face as she grabbed up her bag and phone and sprinted for the door.  “Bis—Bisuke!  Are you going to pay?”

“Put it on my tab!” she called over her shoulder, and Wing’s heavy sigh followed her out onto the street.

 

 

Killua woke up to the smell of grass for only the second time in his life.  The first time had happened several months prior after a long day of hauling around an overstuffed backpack with a sleeping bag tied to the shoulder straps, his skateboard under one arm, dodging in and out of public transportation with Gon and Gon’s bike while trying to avoid anyone who might stop them and ask where they were going, what they were doing, where their parents were.  His heart had threatened to pound clean out of his chest anytime he'd seen a police officer, a teacher with a group of students, anyone with a uniform or an air of authority—or anyone _at all_ who might possibly have been one of his family.

Once they'd made it to a trail in the state park his nerves began to settle, and once Gon had redirected them away from the main path and onto a winding deer trail in a thicker part of the forest he'd worried less about the possibility of being caught and more about the possibility of being lost.  The looming darkness had felt oppressive, and he'd been certain that they'd been walking forever. His back felt weighed down with more than just the pack he'd been carrying, feet dragging through the dirt and leaves, and he'd hardly believed it when Gon had cried out merrily that he’d found it—whatever _it_ was.

_It_ had been where the forest broke into a clearing dominated by a single central tree, taller than the others, too big for even four people to circle around the trunk holding hands.  Killua hadn't been sure how he'd felt about the tree itself, or the mushrooms growing around the base, or the decomposing rope clinging to the bark that had once been tied there firmly.

But the grass all around it had grown thick and soft and had smelled like spring and sunshine, and that had been where he'd slept on his first night as an official runaway.  Fitfully, because no matter how he'd turned, the ground had seemed to aggravate one or more of the fresh bruises on his body.  He didn’t remember sleeping, but he did remember waking in the cool, white hush of dawn, nose filled with the smell of grass, Gon’s breath still heavy with sleep close behind him.  He'd opened his eyes to see a small brown rabbit hopping around the edge of the clearing, nibbling at clover, unconcerned with the two sleeping boys.

_We should talk before we go any further_ , Gon had told him that morning while they had Fig Newtons and lukewarm melon soda for breakfast.   _Because the place that we’re going to isn’t like any place you’ve ever been before.  And you might see strange things, and strange things might happen, and sometimes I might ask you to do things that don’t make sense.  I need to know that you’ll trust me._

_Of course_ , Killua had said, without any hesitation.

This time, he woke up with a Pokemon card stuck to his cheek and one of Gon’s feet dangling awkwardly in his line of sight, and he wondered why the treehouse smelled like grass for all of three seconds before he tried to move and a sharp pain in his ankle jogged his memory.  Aside from those two things, this morning was essentially the same as any other since that first night—waking up in a pile of blankets and toys and clothes and Gon snoring away with one fist buried in the small of Killua’s back.  He rolled over and tried to shove his friend back into his own space with only vague success, and plucked the Magikarp card off of his face.

He stared blearily at the image on the card without really seeing it for longer than was strictly necessary, and may have actually fallen back asleep for a few minutes.  Eventually a metallic clatter broke through his daze, and he realized he’d been hearing tapping and clicking since he woke without resolving a source.

Killua yawned until his jaw cracked and sat up, fending off a stray kick from his bedmate automatically.  He rubbed his eyes until he could see the warm gold light on the horizon and the silhouette of the open caravan door, then Kurapika sitting on the lowest step with a screwdriver in one hand and a pair of crutches propped against his knees.  Killua moving drew his attention, and he glanced over briefly with a placid smile and murmured, very softly, “Morning.”

“Mm,” Killua said, but was actually interested in the crutches, assuming they were for him, and once he had his bearings, he rolled forward onto his knees and crawled out of the nest—a more difficult task than he realized as one of his legs was entangled in a blanket and Gon had a death-grip on the back of his shirt.  The melted ice pack from the night before flopped onto the grass at some point, and once he was able to drag himself into the grass and pull his knees under himself, he grabbed it and held it up for Kurapika wordlessly.

He was almost awake enough to be offended when Kurapika laughed.

“You look like you need some coffee,” he commented, taking the slightly soggy towel and reaching back into the caravan to set it somewhere.  “I have some, if you want it.”

“Gross.”

“You’d probably like it if you made it sweet.”

Killua expressed his dubious feelings about that with a grunt.  He didn’t care about coffee, he cared about being able to walk today and not being stuck on the lawn trying to beat Kurapika at chess.  “Are those for me?”

“Yes.”  Kurapika finished tightening something and stood up, holding the crutches side by side to ensure they were the same height.  “This might be about right.  Want to try them?”

Suddenly Killua felt very awake, straightening on his knees, and quickly took Kurapika’s hand when it was offered so he could get up onto his good leg.  The crutches sat just higher than his armpits when he tried them out, and he couldn’t quite reach the handles, so Kurapika had to make some more adjustments while he propped himself against the caravan door and watched the sky brighten to peach and candy pink as the sun rose.

The cool air and the quiet first thing in the morning were refreshing--it wasn’t completely silent, with the metallic tapping of Kurapika’s screwdriver, Gon flopping over onto his stomach in their pile of sleeping bags, and the old man's soft snores from where he was still sound asleep by the picnic table.  They were faint and comforting, non-intrusive sounds.

That first morning, waking up under the tree and watching the rabbit hop around, was the first time he’d experienced this kind of quiet, and he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of it.

“Alright, try them now.”

The second time the crutches fit under his arms perfectly, and he barely stuttered out a “Thank you,” before giving them a full test run, propelling himself to the end of the gravel driveway and back at a quick swing, pleased with the speed he was able to pick up, barely noticing that he was still barefoot.  On the way back, he saw that Gon was sitting up and staring blearily out at the world around him, until he spotted Killua and was suddenly fully awake, lit up like the sun itself.

“That’s so cool!” Gon declared as he scrambled out from under the blanket, hopping on one foot to dislodge one of his legs from the tangled covers so he could run over and exclaim more directly about the crutches.  “Where did you find them?”

“Kurapika did.”

Gon turned to the benefactor in question, still seated on the steps of his caravan.  “Where did _you_ find them?”

“I broke my leg once when I was younger, so they happened to still be in a closet.”

“Now you can go with me!”

Kurapika seemed to accept that he had stopped being important in relation to Gon’s enthusiasm and went back into the trailer with his screwdriver and presumably the melted ice pack.  Killua balanced on his good foot and prodded the gravel with the end of his crutch until there was a notable dent.  “Go with you to do what?”

Gon looked over his shoulder quickly, like he just realized that there was actually a fourth person present who was still asleep, amazing as it was, and smiled in satisfaction when he discovered this.  “I want to find Leorio a bike.  I promised I’d help him get to the crossroads, and that would be the fastest way.”

“Okay.  Sounds like fun.”

“Kurapika!”

Noting he’d been summoned back to the conversation, Kurapika reappeared in the doorway, a steaming mug in one hand.  “Yes?”

“We’re gonna go out around the park for a while.”

“Are you going to at least put shoes on?”

“Yes,” Killua responded in chorus with Gon.

“Don’t be too long, I’m making breakfast soon.”

Killua was pleased to discover, after dropping to the grass to tie his shoes on, that he could use one of the crutches like a ladder to climb back to his feet.  Being mobile again, even though he’d only really been down for half a day, felt great, being able to easily keep up with Gon’s brisk pace felt great, and being out and about in the cool morning air on one of Gon’s unusual fetch quests was like a bizarre added bonus.

It wasn’t anything particularly special, just looking for a bike.  But in this place that was strange and partially abandoned, where turning his back on the wrong place or person set the hair on his neck standing on end, he felt more like the protagonist in a video game—or maybe the protagonist’s best friend.  Searching the map, fighting monsters, looking for that one hidden treasure chest so they could take the item inside back to the NPC and trigger the next cutscene.

He wondered if Gon ever thought about this the same way, or if Gon was thinking something else entirely.  Sometimes all of this seemed like a fun game, something that would help them pass the time; something that made scrounging seem less desperate, that made their situation seem more like an adventure in a mysterious fantasy world than the less glamorous reality of two runaway kids in worn out clothes living in a treehouse and scamming the locals for food and necessities.

And sometimes he thought about how seriously Gon had spoken that first morning, asking Killua to trust him, and he thought about how his skin prickled when they were close enough to the forest on the north end of the park that he could feel the shade from the trees, and he wondered.

So when Gon came to a halt with a start and a sharp “Ah!” like he’d just remembered something important and dug a leather cord tied in a loop with some polished stone beads and a feather at the end out of his pocket so he could hand it to Killua with a smile and, “Here, you should wear this while we’re not at home,” Killua took it and hung it around his neck without question.

“Is it a magic charm?” he asked as they continued, Gon at a sedated skip with his arms crossed behind his back and Killua at a quick swing that puffed up little swirls of dust around the tips of the crutches.  “Does it enhance my abilities or protect me from elemental attacks?”

Gon hummed like he was giving this serious consideration.  “More like the second thing.”

“Oh?”  Killua felt how the weight of the beads thumped against his chest as he moved.  It didn’t _feel_ like it was magic, but nothing he’d encountered so far had really felt that way—there was just a general sense of strangeness, whiffs of instinct, occasional unease that he couldn’t quantify.  It was enough that he readily accepted whatever Gon identified as protection, whatever he meant by that.  “So where are we headed?”

“I think I saw a bike by one of the empty trailers on the west side.”

“Not near where that creepy clown lives, I hope.”

Gon laughed nervously in a way that was not at all suspicious.  “He won’t be home right now anyway.”

“Still creepy.”

 

 

Leorio hadn’t meant to sleep as late as he did, not that he had an alarm—that was on his phone, which was still turned off and wasn’t worth expending the battery for the sake of a wake-up call, no matter how much he suspected he would need one.

As it happened, though, he only woke up once the sun was fully free of the horizon, blaring yellow around the edges of the awning, a low breeze stirring against the sleeping bag and Leorio’s bangs.  He squinted at the morning in profound suspicion, noting how it was already much later in the day than he’d intended to wake, that Gon and Killua’s nest was empty, that the caravan door was standing open but the screen was shut and Kurapika was nowhere to be seen.  And, as he sniffed the air and rolled slightly, that there was a steaming mug of coffee sitting on the picnic table bench next to him.

This prompted him to sit up, which brought him to the final and most important realization that he was still naked from the waist up, and he quickly used this most opportune moment to wriggle back into his binder.  It was a pain to get back on while still mostly covered by the sleeping bag, and required a lot of adjustment until he felt normal again, but at least it wasn’t as obnoxiously uncomfortable as the day before—probably because he was smarter than Drunk Leorio and hadn’t slept in it.

He’d just sat up properly and reached for the sweet life-giving nectar left for him by some guardian angel or other when the screen door clattered somewhere behind him and Kurapika’s voice commented, “I wasn’t sure if you took cream or sugar.”

Leorio had to take a moment to resolve the fact that he’d just unintentionally called Kurapika an angel, albeit mentally, and decided that the best course of action was to pull his button-up back on and at least try to look presentable.  “Just sugar is fine.”

“Good, because I’m out of half-and-half.”  Kurapika stepped over Leorio’s sleeping bag and sat down on the bench, setting a bowl of sugar cubes between their hip and the mug.  They were dressed in a sleeveless black top today, capri-length cargoes ending in drawstrings a few inches below their knees, and blue canvas slip-ons.  Leorio spent longer than was strictly necessary observing this; watching how Kurapika sat with one elbow back on the surface of the picnic table, knees crossed so that one foot was hovering over Leorio’s legs, still in the sleeping bag.  They had their own cup, presumably already doctored to their taste, and sipped at it while looking out past the edge of the trailer, pink lips pursing around the rim.

He didn’t realize he was staring (mostly at the delicate ankle hovering near his face and the palest peach fuzz that covered their shins and the way the khaki fabric bunched up where their knees crossed and, ultimately, their elegant profile against the gentle blue of the sky in the background) until Kurapika realized he was staring, glancing over and then freezing in place like they weren’t sure what was happening.  Leorio shook himself and quickly redirected his attention to the sugar bowl, babbling out the first excuse that popped to mind.  “Sorry, just woke up, zoning out.”

Kurapika made a humming sound like they weren’t quite buying that, but didn’t pursue it further.

“Where are the kids?”

“Not sure, but they’ll be back.  I told them I was making breakfast.”

Leorio dropped a few cubes into his mug and stirred, cast a glance sideways to see that Kurapika wasn’t looking at him, and quickly tugged the collar of his shirt up to sniff it.  It wasn’t terrible, but not great, either--mostly grass and campfire.  He should probably make use of the deodorant in his briefcase, to be honest.  “You just let them run off?  Aren’t we better parents than that?”

Kurapika snorted into their coffee.  “They’ll be fine.  I gave Killua a pair of crutches, so they won’t get too far.”

“That’s stellar child rearing, right there.”

“Well,” they murmured, hesitating like they were considering whether to go along with the joke, “it _is_ only a temporary guardianship, after all.”  Kurapika’s free hand reached up to tuck their hair back behind one ear—the left, Leorio noticed, and saw the earring dangling there for the first time.  Just a simple silver clasp with a small red stone.

Leorio mulled over that—and over the joke—during the first few hesitant sips from his mug.  The flavor was just right, but it was still slightly too hot.  “Have you known them for a long time?”

Kurapika hummed in response and paused just long enough that Leorio was sure that whatever they were about to say had been cautiously curated.  “Not at all.  Well, a few months, I suppose, since I noticed them coming and going here, usually with the manager or just playing around.  I’ve given them food a few times, otherwise I can’t say we’re particularly acquainted.”

Leorio leaned over the sugar bowl, frowning darkly.  “And you’re not concerned that they’re basically running wild without any parental supervision.”

Kurapika laughed—sort of a small chuckle, actually, hand curled politely in front of their mouth.

“Glad to know you take this seriously.”

“No, sorry, you just looked so personally offended by the idea.  I’m concerned, I suppose, but it’s not something I’ve taken responsibility for up until now.”

“Why not?”

Another long pause, this time with a sigh, a long sip of coffee, and a stare that was directed away from Leorio.  “I didn’t want to get involved.”  They hummed again as though considering their own statement and glanced down at Leorio with an amused curl to their lips.  “And look at you, barely here for a whole day and you’re already involved in everyone’s business.”

“Well.  I mean, I get that this isn’t exactly the height of civilization, here, but back in the real world, when there are two underage kids running around by themselves, living in a tree and begging for food, someone usually does something about it.”

“And what do they do,” Kurapika asked, hypothetical in tone and manner.  “Take them away?  Uproot them from everything they know?  Split them up?  Put them in an unfamiliar house with an unfamiliar adult so that they’re sufficiently supervised?”

Leorio tilted his head back, then to the side, considering, mouth twisting around a bit.  “It’s not always a terrible thing.”  Especially considering what was most likely happening with Killua.  If he’d actively and willingly come here with Gon, he probably _wanted_ to be uprooted and taken away from the environment he lived in.

“No, but you have to consider it from their perspective.  If what they want right now is to be together, and they’re happy that way and able to look out for each other and meet their basic needs, then let them be.  There _are_ people here who will take action if there’s a real problem.”

“People who know Gon’s father?”  Leorio asked, rather abrupt, maybe more than a little suspicious that Kurapika hadn’t mentioned that yet.  “Gon said he was well known around here.”

Contrary to Leorio’s suspicions, Kurapika didn’t look surprised.  “He is.”

“To you?”

“Not personally.  He and my parents were friends at one time.”

“So just knowing him or knowing _of_ him is enough to ensure that someone here is going to keep an eye on his son.”

“Pretty much.”

“What about Killua?”

“That’s more complicated.”  Kurapika’s eyes closed for a long moment, mug under their nose but not taking a sip.  “As long as he’s with Gon, as long as he’s important to Gon, then he’s fine.  And neither of those things seem likely to change.”

Leorio contemplated his coffee, since Kurapika wasn’t looking at him anyway, and he considered that maybe he’d struck on too heavy of a conversation after all.  “Well.  Maybe I’m old-fashioned, maybe I worry too much, maybe I’m not considering their point of view enough, but I don’t like it.  Sooner or later, living like this is going to stop being fun and start being miserable.  When the weather gets cold, or when they have to go hungry.  Living on your own is hard, life is hard, that’s why you have people to look after you until you’re old enough to cope with how hard it is.  Every kid wants to be taken care of eventually.  Even grownups want that.”

“Oh?”  Kurapika’s voice brimmed with amused but altruistic interest.  “And who takes care of you, Mr. Med Student?”

Leorio sighed enough to make the surface of his coffee ripple.  He remembered a time when he was roughly seventeen, maybe not quite that old, and came down with a nasty cold.  That was the last time someone else had gone to buy his medicine, made him soup, refilled his water, brought him movies from the living room and extra pillows so he could prop himself up and watch them.  Every time since then, he'd had to do all of those things himself.  “The downside to being an adult is that sometimes you have to go without.”

Kurapika didn’t reply, and didn’t make any kind of sound to acknowledge or agree, and when Leorio looked up, their head was turned too far to the side to see any kind of expression—just blond hair slipping back over their ear, that little earring swinging against their neck.

Leorio considered the difference, for a moment, between the two of them.  There was being alone the way _he_ was alone—in a vast sea of people, scraping for change to run the washing machine, getting by on noodle cups and health drinks, working and studying through every cough and sneeze and upset stomach because he couldn’t afford not to.  But there were small concessions, here and there—a classmate to copy their lecture notes so he could get a few more hours of sleep.  A coworker to trade him shifts so he could go to an observation.  A professor to write him a recommendation, a boss who bought sandwiches for the swing shift to make sure everyone was eating.  Little things that made it easier to keep going.

Out here, in this sparsely populated, run down RV park in the middle of nowhere, Kurapika was alone in a different way.  A bit standoffish, more than a bit defensive of their space, unwilling to get involved with the people around them.  Leorio wondered, idly, when Kurapika last had someone to take care of them when they were sick.  Was it a friend?  A parent?  A lover?  What had happened to that person since then?

He didn’t realize he was staring again, fixated on that little red stone and the smooth jawline that curved down from it, until Kurapika moved and suddenly he was staring into clear brown eyes.  They didn’t seem surprised this time, just stared back, cool and level, almost like it was a contest.

“Is that what it means, to be an adult?” Kurapika asked after a long pause, more challenging than contemplative.  “Or is that what it means to be alone?  Adults don’t always know better than children just because they’re adults.  Those two know how to take care of each other and are more capable of doing so than either of their biological parents.”  They took a final drink of their coffee and set it down by their hip, next to the sugar bowl, hand lingering there around the rim as their voice lowered.  “So what does that say about us?”

Leorio slouched a bit where he sat, scratching a hand through his hair, feeling cowed.  “I suppose that’s fair.”

“What is?”

Leorio’s frown was more like a pout. “I thought we were going to leave that up to implication.”

“I want to know that we’re on the same page.”

He grumbled at his coffee, feeling old and jaded and uncomfortable under Kurapika’s stare.  “I suppose if it says anything, maybe it’s that we’re alone not because we’ve been left that way but because we don’t know how to take care of anyone but ourselves.  Is that enough philosophical discussion for one morning?  This is only my first cup of coffee.”

Kurapika laughed again, that same restrained chuckle hidden behind their hand.  “Maybe that was a bit heavy.”

“Well, it’s my fault for striking a nerve.”

“Not really.”  Kurapika unfolded from their position and leaned forward on their knees, hunched a little so their cheek was pressed against their shoulder, observing Leorio through their bangs.  “You’re not the sort of person I expected you to be, Leorio.  I appreciate your honesty.”

Leorio spent longer than was strictly necessary piecing together the words with the tone, and the way Kurapika’s eyes were warmer than the coffee between his hands and about the same color, and then something squirmed in his stomach and his neck felt hot and he wasn’t sure what to do about any of these things other than look away and clear his throat and try to pretend that his heart wasn’t rattling around in his ribcage like it wanted to escape.  He mumbled something about being too nice to strangers that trailed off halfway through the sentence and didn’t make sense even to him.

And when he chanced shooting a look back to the side, there was a smile on Kurapika’s face that made everything categorically worse.

“Can you start a fire?  I feel like cooking outside this morning.”  The bench creaked as Kurapika got up, one hand reaching out to steady themself on Leorio’s shoulder, fingers pressing through the fabric of his shirt.  “I’ll bring the coffee pot out.”

The touch had only lasted an instant but it lingered as though he’d been burned, seeping down into his nerves like an invisible brand.  Leorio rubbed both hands over his face, pushing his glasses up into his hair, and stared down at the half-drunk mug between his elbows.

“Shit.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You just don’t want me to be able to beat you with your own Vaporeon!” Gon followed after him with a bundle of towels and washrags and Kurapika’s shower caddy in his arms, damp and aggravated, dripping water in his wake._   
>  _“I’ll throw in a Mudkip if you think it’s that unfair.”_   
>  _“You can’t buy me with Mudkips, Killua!”_
> 
> In which the sky opens up and rains down on Leorio, and Kurapika does laundry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, I was distracted by the Steam sale and one of my betas had fanfic-trumping life issues to deal with, but we should be back on the roughly two-week schedule now. I'm gonna participate in Camp NaNoWriMo next month to get another 20k or so written for this while it's still summer! And thus, hopefully, stay several chapters ahead in writing than where I am posting.

>   _someone like you_  
>  _and all you know, and how you speak_  
>  _countless lovers under cover of the street_
> 
> _you know that I could use somebody_

* * *

Gon found a bike in the overgrown lot of an old fifth wheel; the top half of the trailer was missing as though a giant hand from the sky had reached down and ripped it away.  The bike was muddy brown and faded with a cracked leather seat and a wire basket affixed to the rear, propped against a water spigot with grass and dandelions growing through the spokes.  He and Killua prodded it all over, and Gon took it for a spin up and down the nearest dirt drive to make sure it was functional.  He had to stand on the pedals because it was too tall for him to sit, but the chain was still oiled and the brakes worked and it didn’t spontaneously fall apart, so he high-fived Killua and they took it back to the caravan.

Leorio didn’t look particularly impressed at first, eyeballing the contraption like it might spring to life and bite him at any moment, until Kurapika yelled from the picnic table that their breakfast was getting cold.

Killua having crutches meant that he was able to follow around at Gon’s heels again, which felt more natural than having to leave him by himself on the lawn.  The continual _snick snick snick_ of the crutches shuffling around behind him was comforting.

“Don’t forget that you still owe me choco balls,” Killua was saying while he got dressed properly, hunting through their pile of bedding and belongings for a relatively clean sock.  “And try to get some new comics.  Maybe a few booster packs, too.”

“Anything else?” Gon tried to ask sarcastically, but to be fair he’d never been good at sarcasm and Killua didn’t always know to quit while he was ahead.

“Yeah, the latest Nintendo Power magazine and a bag of cheese puffs.  Oh, and some Powerade.”

“Killua,” Gon said very seriously, straightening with what he considered an acceptable sock, regardless of the fact that it didn’t match the one he already had on, and placed both hands on his friend’s shoulders.  He drew in a breath through his nose, counted to three, and exploded.

“I CAN’T POSSIBLY LIFT ALL OF THOSE THINGS AT ONCE WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE ASKING ME?!”

Killua grimaced, leaning in until they were nose to nose.  “I could do it!”

“That’s because you’re you!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Woah, woah,” Leorio interjected himself over their heads, hands on their respective shoulders tugging them apart.  “What’s going on?”

“None of your business, old man,” Killua scoffed, trying to cross his arms defiantly but unable to do so because of the crutches propped under his arms, so he just looked away with a huff.

Gon recovered quickly, grinning until Killua glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes and his scowl twisted into a pout.  “Nothing.  Killua was just being greedy.”

“Well, if there’s something you two need, I can pick it up and send it back with Gon.  Think of it as a farewell gift.”

“Great!  Thanks, Leorio!”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Killua muttered under his breath, and Gon remembered that Killua still had Leorio’s wallet.  He gave his friend a stern stare but Killua just looked self-satisfied, so he sighed, shoulders slumping, and gave up.

“Don’t give Kurapika any trouble,” he said, listening to the _snick_ of the crutches following him to where his bike was propped against the hitch.  “Okay?”

“As long as we don’t spend the day playing chess again.  I think one of us might end up dead.”

Speaking of which, Kurapika had wandered over to where the old bike was propped on its kickstand, near the gravel driveway.  Leorio had wedged his briefcase into the rear basket and was frowning at the brake grips.  He had his suit jacket on and a tie around his neck for the first time since Gon had met him, and he straightened to attention when Kurapika spoke, one hand flying to the back his neck like he felt it burning.

“Gross,” Killua muttered, and Gon hummed, wheeling his bike closer.

“I guess this is goodbye,” Leorio said, rubbing his neck, and then held his hand out, awkwardly, limbs uncomfortably gangly around his body.  “Thanks for all your help.  I guess… if you ever decide to come back to civilization, go ahead and look me up.”

“Sure,” Kurapika replied, maybe with a little more warmth than was necessary, shaking the offered hand with a measure of grace that wasn’t really required.  “Take care of yourself, Leorio.”

“Right.”  Leorio shuffled from side to side, stepped back and nearly tripped over the bike that was literally right behind him.  “Well.  See you.  Then.”

Gon blinked at him while he struggled with the bike and the bike’s kickstand, then struggled to get it moving in one of the ruts in the dirt road, like his legs didn’t want to cooperate with the pedals.  He did manage, eventually, just as Gon drew level with Kurapika, who was watching with folded arms and an odd little smile on his face.  “He makes it so easy to feel sorry for him.”

“Huh,” Gon verbalized, not sure if he understood everything that had just happened, but not really disagreeing.  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Make sure he comes back safely, okay?”

“Of course!”  Gon offered up a bright grin and climbed onto his bike.  “Let’s have mac and cheese for dinner.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Awesome!”  He took off like a shot, one hand waving over his head.  “I’ll be back soon!”

Ahead of him, Leorio squirmed around a lot in the rut, not quite able to handle the bike the way he wanted to, until they were out on the paved road and could ride easy.  It was still early in the day, the glow of the morning sun was still low and cool, angling shadows towards them from the tall grass and brush on the roadside.  They had a bit of a tailwind, a breeze blowing from the east that was cool and damp and made Gon glance at the sky in concern.  There might be a storm, but they should make it to the crossroads before it hit.

Leorio kept level with him, long legs spinning the pedals easily.  “About how long is the ride?”

“We should be there in fifteen minutes,” Gon estimated, and struggled for balance when the wind suddenly gusted.  They hadn’t even made it to the first hill, and Gon frowned, chancing a look back over his shoulder.  Gray clouds loomed on the horizon.  “If we speed up a little maybe ten minutes.”

Leorio glanced back because Gon had and his bike creaked dangerously.  “What the hell.”

“It’s okay, we’ll get to the store before it starts raining.”  Gon stood up on his pedals as the ground rose up gently.  “This is the first hill.  Use the momentum to pick up speed.”

“All right.”

The old bike rattled a bit to begin with, and seemed to be steadily increasing in protest as they went along, and Leorio just as steadily began to fall behind.  Gon coasted down the hill without concerning himself too much with it, calling over his shoulder in encouragement to Leorio as they approached the second hill.  A few squeaks from the bike and a grunt from the rider were his only response, and both of those things faded enough in the distance after he coasted down the second hill that Gon braked a bit, looking back over his shoulder to see the old bike struggling while Leorio cursed at the handlebars.

“What’s wrong?”

Leorio came to a halt, both feet on the pavement, both hands in the air like he wanted to rip his hair out.  “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Gon slowed almost to a halt and swung his bike around to backtrack.  “What?”

“The tires are flat.”

“What?” Gon repeated, not as a question but an expression of disbelief.  “They were fine earlier!  I rode it around the park to make sure.”

“Well, they’re flat now!”  Leorio swung himself off the saddle and stared at the muddy brown contraption like he wanted to fling it into the sun.  “Dammit, we’re not even halfway there.  Why does this keep happening?”

_He makes it so easy to feel sorry for him_ , Kurapika had said.  Gon felt guilty for the first time, drawing to a halt beside Leorio, and sure enough, both tires were flat enough that just the weight of the bike itself squashed the rubber into pancakes.  “There must have been a slow leak.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Leorio said, the way that adults said things were fine even when they clearly weren’t.  “You tried to help.  It’s not your fault.”

Gon climbed off of his own bike silently, contrite for reasons Leorio probably wouldn’t understand even if he explained them.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t like he could just stand in front of his new friend, who was overloaded with concern and care and a kind of fumbling sense of paternal responsibility and noble intent, and tell him _I’m sorry, but you can’t just leave this place that easily_.  Leorio was a genuinely good person, and Gon didn’t meet genuinely good people all that often.

“Let’s get back to the park then.  Maybe we’ll make it before the storm hits.”

“Right.”  Leorio looked like he might just drop the bike on the gravel roadside and leave it, ineffective as it had been, then seemed to think better of it.  “Maybe I can fix it.”

Gon perked up in response to the positive attitude.  “Yeah, we can help!  We’ll just have to try again.  I promised I’d get you to the crossroads, and I will.”

Leorio looked like he really believed that, drawing up straight, spinning the bike around and starting off at a quick pace.  “Yeah, alright, let’s beat the rain back to the park.”

“Yeah!  Let’s go!”  Gon took off at a run, handlebars in his hands, laughing and calling challenges over his shoulder, almost like he was racing Killua and had started before he was ready.  Turning their failure into a game, and hoping that was enough to keep Leorio going for another day, until they could try again.  He had a long struggle ahead of him, if he really wanted to get home.

The rain started when they reached the base of the first hill, cold fat drops that fell on Gon’s nose and shoulder and the back of his hand.  He kept rushing forward, undeterred, even when the rain broke into a downpour.

Rain in the spring made things grow, and sometimes it made people grow, too.

 

 

The rain was coming down in sheets by the time they got back to the caravan, pelting down on Leorio’s head and shoulders like a shower faucet.  He’d given up on trying to hurry, trying to fend off the deluge, trying to keep the mud off his shoes, trying to do anything really other than plod along towards the inevitable.  He was soaked through everywhere, socks squelching in his shoes, pants clinging to his thighs, jacket heavy on his chest and cold on his arms.  Gon was significantly less concerned, zooming ahead on his bike as soon as the trailer was visible, kicking up mud in his wake.

Killua was under the awning when they arrived, propped up on crutches, umbrella swinging from one hand, and all their respective belongings and sleeping bags were nowhere to be seen.  Gon dropped his muddy bike next to the trailer hitch and hopped over to him, trying to chatter about something or other over the roar of rain against the caravan’s aluminum siding.  Kurapika emerged from inside as Leorio arrived, pushing the useless bike into place alongside Gon’s because why not, he’d lost all control of his life, he was soaking wet and muddy and eighty miles from home.  He didn’t hear what Kurapika said to the two boys, didn’t hear anything that came out of their mouth until he realized that his name had been repeated several times at increasing volume, and looked up.

Kurapika had one hand against the closed door of the trailer, keys dangling from their fingers and umbrella hooked on their wrist, the other hand propping a towel-wrapped laundry basket against their hip.  Leorio blinked at them through a daze, and he must have looked as pathetic as he felt because Kurapika’s mouth contorted trying not to laugh, eyes turning down at the corners in sympathy.  “Come on, we’re going to the central building.  Take the umbrella.”

Leorio did as instructed in a kind of dreamlike trance, fiddling with the release mechanism with some difficulty while balancing his briefcase in the other hand.  Once it was open, the lack of rain beating down on him was a welcome relief, even if it meant his clothes started to get uncomfortably sticky.  Kurapika stuck close to his side, which he might have felt positive about under any other circumstances, but right now he was drenched and probably smelled terrible and really didn’t feel positive about _anything_ , let alone cute blonds and their proximity.

The walk was uneventful; Kurapika spent most of it either casting Leorio pitying glances or yelling at the two boys who were probably too far ahead of them to hear anything.  By some magic or miracle or who even knew what, they arrived at the abomination of a front door without a single drop landing on Kurapika’s basket, despite precaution, and Gon was courteously acting as a doorstop so Leorio didn’t have to risk further drenching to get inside.

The door shut with a clang, and for nearly a minute Leorio just stood where he was, dripping on the concrete floor, closed umbrella equally dripping in his hand, listening to Gon and Killua’s voices echoing around the open ceiling.

Fortunately, Kurapika was there, and Kurapika was actually a much kinder person than Leorio had originally given them credit for.  Kurapika took the umbrella away from him and hung it on a hook by the door, then took his hand and pulled on it until he started walking, blankly noting the white walls, a short row of brown cardboard boxes in a brief hallway with a hand-lettered sign over them reading FREE, then how the floor dipped down a bit as they passed through the entry to the showers.

Kurapika pushed aside the plastic curtain to a stall and set the basket on the low bench inside, pulling out another folded towel, then a washcloth, then a small caddy of soap and shampoo and other toiletries.  “Put your clothes in the basket and I’ll start the laundry while you wash.  I’ll find something in the free bins for you to wear until they’re dry.”

Leorio made a noise that wasn’t quite agreement, but Kurapika just smiled and left him there, drawing the white curtain shut.

He spent a minute or two staring at the half-empty laundry basket and the shampoo, feeling increasingly uncertain about himself but progressively better and better about taking a shower.  It sounded heavenly, in fact.  But _after_ the shower—how much of a problem would _that_ end up being?

After three tries he gave up on trying to untie his wet shoelaces and just yanked the sneakers off, peeling the socks after them.  His suit jacket tried to adhere to the shirt beneath it and his cold fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and the zipper on his pants and damn near everything.

Trying to drag the wet binder off his shoulders was the worst, and for one terrifying moment he thought he was stuck and would have to ask someone to help.  Eventually, though, he won the fight, and stood staring at it for an uncomfortable period of seconds.  It needed to be washed--dried, at the very least, but preferably both, or he would never be able to get it back on.  It would be alright on the delicate cycle, and it looked enough like a plain white undershirt that Kurapika wouldn’t question it, but—

_What to do in the interim_.

There was a sports bra in his briefcase, with his spare boxers and socks—in case of emergencies, like everything else, because emergencies happened to him all the time, like a plague or infestation that he attracted by virtue of existing.  It wasn’t an ideal replacement, by any stretch, but it was his only option.  Leorio sighed at the binder, which had seriously been his greatest antagonist from the moment he woke up in the back of that truck, and Kurapika chose that moment to pipe up from outside the curtain.

“Can I take the basket?”

Leorio jumped and dropped the binder, and hissed at himself.  “Just a second.”  He finished stripping, flung the last of his clothes into the basket, grabbed the washcloth and caddy and slipped into the actual shower, which blessedly had its own curtain.  “Okay, go for it.”

“I found some flannel pants and a sweatshirt for you, but they might be too big.  I’ll leave them here by the towel.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Should I hang the suit up to dry, or…?”

“It’s polyester.  Just wash everything together on delicate.  Except the tie.”

“Alright, will do.”

Leorio didn’t mean to hold his breath until he couldn’t hear Kurapika’s footsteps anymore, but he did, and then he shook himself and cursed a few times and turned on the water.

That turned out to be the best decision he’d made all day, because for the love of all that was holy— _hot water_.  Soap.  Cleanliness.   _Bliss_.  He emerged from behind the curtain a luxurious fifteen minutes later warmed through, smelling like an Ivory bar and Kurapika’s coconut hair conditioner, feeling like a human being for the first time in days.

The baseball-patterned drawstring pants Kurapika found were slightly large but easily cinched to fit him; the sweatshirt, though, was bright blue and obnoxiously oversized, the logo of some tourist trap or other emblazoned across the chest.  He might have foregone it completely and tried to find something better himself, but it made his less-compressed chest almost unnoticeable.  Luck was finally on his side.

His shoes were missing along with the laundry basket, so he slung the towel around his neck and carried his socks out along with his briefcase and the shower caddy, so he didn’t soak them immediately stepping in one of his puddles.  There was no one else in the shower area, but he heard voices and running washers from the laundry, so he wandered in there with a smirk and spread arms, turning in place for Kurapika’s perusal.  “When you said sweatshirt, I wasn’t expecting a dress.”

Kurapika laughed, an actual unconstrained belly laugh, emphatic enough that they had to lean against a washer for support.  “Oh my god, it’s _huge_.”

“I feel like I need a belt.”  Leorio dropped the items in his hands on the nearest machine and pushed the sleeves cuffs close to his elbows, bunching the fabric up comically, and cinched his fingers around his waist.  The hem did actually fall low enough to feel just barely snug on his thighs.  It would be a scandalously short dress, but a dress regardless.  “What do you think?  Could I take it on the runway?”

“I think you’d make quite a statement.”  Kurapika picked up the caddy and was instantly surrounded by Gon and Killua, one of whom snatched it from their hands before Leorio could tell which, before they’d both disappeared around the corner into the showers, arguing about who was going to use the shampoo first.  Gon had a towel tied around his neck like a cape and Killua was staggeringly fast on his crutches.  Kurapika took two confused steps after them before reaching back for the empty basket and following at a firm pace.  “You two, don’t fight over that.  Put your dirty clothes in the basket.  Don’t you have something else to wear?”

Gon’s voice echoed far too loud for Leorio to make out whatever he said in response, so he leaned against the running washer and pulled his socks on.  Kurapika reappeared a minute later, basket in hand, looking frazzled.

“So,” Leorio grunted, pulling the second sock up and dropping his foot before he overbalanced.  “What happened to my shoes?”

“On the shoe dryer,” Kurapika said in passing, thumbing over their shoulder.

_Shoe dryer_ , Leorio echoed and may have said out loud in wonder, and sure enough there were three such contraptions on the wall opposite the regular dryers.  His shoes were wedged onto the paddles, the machine humming away briskly, a display showing it would run for another thirteen minutes.  How about that.

Kurapika was opening the washers when he wandered back over, and pointed him towards the furthest one to the right.  “That one is yours.  Washed on delicate.”

“Thanks.”  He dug everything out, noted that nothing had fallen apart, in fact, and hauled it over to a dryer.  Kurapika pushed a few quarters into the slot over his shoulder and he stumbled over an apology.  “Ah, I don’t think I have any cash in my wallet, but… what do I owe you for this?”

“Don’t worry about it.”  Kurapika waved him off, filling the change slot on their own machine and starting it.  “Consider it one of your not-exactly-five-star amenities.”

Leorio frowned, something nagging in the back of his mind, then quickly opened the dryer again to grab for his pants.  “Speaking of my wallet, did you take it out of the pocket when you washed these?”

“The pockets were empty.  I checked.”

“Huh.”  Leorio checked over everything anyhow, patted down the jacket, then put everything back and started the dryer tumbling.  “Must’ve put it in my briefcase,” he mumbled to himself, but he didn’t remember seeing it when he’d opened it for the spare underwear, just a few minutes ago.

Some deep paranoia and a cursory search later, though, and Leorio lowered the lid to his briefcase and thumbed the clasps closed with a snap.  “So, my wallet is missing.”

Kurapika was sitting atop a washing machine, next to the one now whirring with the kids’ clothes inside, mouth turned down in sympathy.  “I’m sure it’s around the lot.  You probably just dropped it, as much moving around as you did yesterday.”

“Could be.”  He wanted to be angrier about it—probably _should_ have been angrier about it, really, but maybe he was too exhausted.  And maybe Kurapika was right, and it was just under the picnic table or lying in the truck bed.

He wanted to be angry but instead his mind fixed on how Kurapika’s seat was just the right height that he could, theoretically, stand there between their knees, elbows on the machine on either side of their hips, lean his head against their shoulder, and take a nice nap.  He thought about that for longer than he really should have, staring at the space Kurapika’s hands were occupying in profound jealousy, until that small repressed laugh thing they did distracted him and he realized he’d been gawking again.

If Kurapika noticed or cared that Leorio was sputtering like a teakettle they didn’t say anything, just leaned forward with their hands curled around the edge of the machine, lips curved into the most perfect smile imaginable.  “I should have brought you a razor,” they murmured, and Leorio reflexively rubbed his jaw, rough with stubble now after two mornings without a shave.  He didn’t mind—there were days he deliberately forgot to shave just for the sake of the glorious phenomenon that was facial hair.

When Leorio opened his mouth at that point, he really should have said something intelligent, or at least flirtatious.  It was possible that he was just exhausted by the events of the past two days, that the thrill of the shower had worn off and he was starting to feel frustrated and resentful again, that his brain was too gobsmacked by his cuddling fantasy and/or Kurapika’s smile and wide brown eyes.  Whatever the reason, the sentence that actually came out of his mouth was, “Do you _own_ razors?”

It was very clear, within less than a second, that out of all the things he could have said in response, that was possibly the worst choice imaginable.  Kurapika’s expression hardened, mouth curving down into a scowl, eyes going cold, leaning back almost as if they’d been repelled.  Leorio could practically see their affection levels dropping to almost nothing with enough force that he took half a step back.

“Oh my god,” he murmured, wanting to punch himself in the face and very nearly doing so.  “Wow, that was rude and really kind of mean.”

“Yes, it was.”  Kurapika’s voice was flat.

“I’m sorry.  I don’t know why I said that.  I’m sorry.”

Kurapika stared at him for a long moment, not quite as defensive and cold, but _hurt_ in a way that made Leorio’s stomach twist up.  At length, they turned their head to the side, indicating the far wall and turning away at the same time.  “Your shoes are dry.”

“Oh.”  Leorio shuffled a bit, then took the dismissal as what it was and slunk off to the shoe dryers in shame.  What the hell?  Why did he say something like that?  He of all people knew better, dammit.  If he had just said something sweet and nonsensical, who knows, he might have actually gotten to nap on Kurapika’s shoulder.

Maybe he wasn’t good at being sweet and nonsensical.  Maybe he’d sabotaged himself out of getting cozy with the cute… now he was leaning towards _boy_ but he still wasn’t totally sure and would rather get direct confirmation from Kurapika, if he was capable of doing so without making even more of an ass of himself.  Why?  Because he was leaving tomorrow, as soon as he got the bike fixed and actually made it to the crossroads.  And tomorrow was Monday, so there was the option of catching the park manager and using the office phone, too.  The likeliness that he’d ever cross paths with Kurapika again after that was slim.

_But you could give them your number,_ a little traitorous voice in the back of his mind whispered.   _You could come back to visit._ Not that he even remotely had time for that.  Leorio didn’t date--he didn’t feel the need to, generally, and didn’t really _want_ to—because it would require too much explaining on his part and also because there just was not enough time in his life to devote to another person.

So maybe it was better that he’d put his foot in his mouth.  He was sorry, though, and hoped that maybe Kurapika would forgive him so at least they could part ways on good terms.

The insides of the shoes were indeed dry, and cozy and warm when he tied them on, which was at least a little comforting.  Kurapika was still sitting on the washer when he turned back around, but their body language was closed off, arms and legs crossed.  He approached with trepidation, and by the time he crossed the room, he’d almost decided to just tell them everything.  Just as a sort of penance.

Kurapika looked up sharply when he approached.  “So you know, _that_ was striking a nerve.”

“Yeah.”  Leorio took the reference to their earlier conversation and threaded his fingers together awkwardly.  “I’m sorry.  I’m really—I do actually get just how shitty that was, I’m not just trying to save face here.  I mean…” he trailed, looking around the room absently and wondering just how the hell he could tell Kurapika _I know exactly how you feel_ without coming across as a giant asshole.  “It’s—”

“Leorio.”

He stopped abruptly at the tone and dropped his arms to his sides.  Kurapika had a fierce sort of look, not really angry, not really upset, just… aggressive.

“What do you see?” they asked after a few heartbeats of silence, voice softer than the expression implied.  “When you look at me.  What do you see?”

Leorio felt his jaw go slack, caught up in the intensity of Kurapika’s stare and whatever underlying questions they were trying to ask him, feeling like he’d just sat down to an exam but he’d studied the wrong chapter.  The longer he went returning the stare and not responding the more he could see the hurt seeping back in around the edges.  He took a breath, finally, not even sure what was going to come out, and said, “Kurapika,” as though the name was a question.

Kurapika blinked several times, all the intensity draining out of their expression and the air between the two of them, mouth opening and closing and opening again without uttering a sound.  Leorio didn’t know what to do, not sure if he’d gotten it really, really right or really, really wrong, even less sure if he should dare to ask.

He happened to be saved from making a decision by Gon’s voice suddenly appearing around the corner, very loudly demanding, “BUT WHY ISN’T GOLDUCK GOOD ENOUGH?”

Killua appeared first with a towel over his head, pausing with the crutches propped in his armpits to rub it idly through his hair, explaining himself calmly from behind it.  “Golduck is good enough, I’m just saying that you need to throw in Kabuto to sweeten the pot.  We’re talking about a pretty serious water type trade and I want to know that I’m getting a good deal in terms of how it affects both of our decks overall.”

“You just don’t want me to be able to beat you with your own Vaporeon!”  Gon followed after him with a bundle of towels and washrags and Kurapika’s shower caddy in his arms, damp and aggravated, dripping water in his wake.

“I’ll throw in a Mudkip if you think it’s that unfair.”

“You can’t buy me with Mudkips, Killua!”

“Guys,” Kurapika said, just a perfect notch louder than their voices, and slid off the machine, walking past Leorio to collect the shower caddy from Gon.  “Put the towels in the machine that’s open on the end and start it.”

“Okay,” the two chorused together, but the argument was only over for another five seconds.  Leorio lost track of the names being thrown back and forth and only really paid attention when the washing machine closed with a loud thump that jolted his mind back to the present and out of the downward spiral of _shit does Kurapika hate me now_ , followed immediately by Killua shrieking because Gon was trying to headbutt him with his wet hair.

Leorio nearly got bowled over by Gon trying to escape from Killua, unfairly hampered by his crutches, by running in rings around the folding tables; Kurapika evaded the boys neatly, empty laundry basket held high in the air.  He and Kurapika were both heading to the same place, Leorio realized, both of their dryers on the last thirty seconds, and stood awkwardly side by side in front of them in silence for what felt more like thirty minutes.

Kurapika’s dryer stopped tumbling first, and their head tilted slightly to the side just as it came to a halt.  “I suppose I forgive you.  I’m not sure that I believe you, but I do believe that you genuinely regret speaking carelessly, so I’ll accept your apology this time.  But consider yourself on probation.”

“That’s fair,” Leorio said, probably too quickly, in a sudden exhale that released all the tension in his body.  “Thank you.”

Kurapika made a humming sound and opened the dryer door, which he figured was a signal that the conversation was over and they were moving on.

Everything in Leorio’s machine was dry, and he found a stray hanger on a rack in the corner where his tie was hung up to dry, so he spent some time neatly arranging his suit and dress shirt on it on the off-chance they would stay clean and unwrinkled until he was prepared to leave.  The flannel pants were comfortable and he didn’t care much what happened to them, so he’d just continue wearing them for the rest of the day.

Kurapika pulled their clothes out and dumped them on one of the folding tables, then went to break up the impromptu wrestling match and subsequent yelling that had begun on the floor near the washers, herding the two boys out into the lounge to get some food out of the vending machines.  Leorio folded his socks and underwear and stashed them back in his briefcase, grabbed the freshly clean binder and went to poke through the free bins for a more reasonable shirt.

He found a gray tee in his size within seconds, and a few minutes later was changed and properly bound and discarded the terrible sweatshirt.  He walked back into the laundry feeling fantastically normal, almost forgetting that the sports bra was still wadded in his hand until he came face to face with Kurapika, standing by the entry with a bag of pretzels in one hand and a soda can in the other, and hastily shoved it into his pocket.

Kurapika looked him up and down, unreadable expression on their face.  “I didn’t think that would fit you.”

“You didn’t?”

“You seem a lot bigger to people smaller than you.”

“Oh.”  Leorio scratched at the stubble on his chin, considering the space between the top of Kurapika’s head and his eye level.  “Yeah, that makes sense.”

They continued staring up at him for another second or two, then glanced away, turning to go attend the pile of laundry on the folding tables.  “It suits you better, anyway.”

Leorio remained rooted to the spot, mouth dropping open, one hand hovering vaguely midair, because that was an actual compliment, wasn’t it?  And a slightly flirty compliment at that, and Leorio wasn’t sure how to even process the notion that Kurapika was flirting with him.  After what just happened, he figured he should probably take it with a grain of salt.

Honestly, though, what he needed to do was learn what exactly Kurapika _wanted_ Leorio to see when he looked at them, rather than just defaulting to neutral and trying to avoid assumptions.  That wasn’t going to work forever, and was already tripping him up, and the next time it happened Kurapika might not forgive him.

He needed to at least work that out, before he left.  He figured he owed it to both of them.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A grin crawled onto Leorio’s face that was probably ill-advised, especially when it coupled with leaning his elbows on the table, propping his chin in one hand, squinting a bit when Kurapika scowled. “So I’m smooth, huh.”_   
>  _“Would you please drop it.”_   
>  _“Would you say it was in a suave way or more… rugged?”_   
>  _“I am never complimenting you again.”_
> 
> In which pronouns are discussed, and cupcakes are bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm... not sure what to comment on for this update! Haaaa. Thank you all for your kudos and nice messages; I haven't had a chance to sit down and write out replies lately but I read everything. Usually several times over. Especially when I feel stuck or frustrated, it really makes a difference! Thank you guys.
> 
> Also thank you to @reeology and @adulterclavis for their awesome beta-reading

> _now I'm just chasing time_   
>  _with a thousand dreams I'm holding heavy_   
>  _and as we cross the line_   
>  _these fading beats have all been severed_
> 
> _don't tell me our youth is running out_

* * *

Leorio’s new goal in life—of a more immediate nature than completing medical school, passing his boards, and a couple of very important surgeries—was to figure out Kurapika’s gender identity.  He went about this in a decidedly sitcom-ish way, because asking them about it directly would be too simple and might actually net results.

“What a nice day,” he commented over breakfast, gesturing towards the sky with the sausage speared at the end of his fork.  “Really.  Such a lovely day to be a man, wouldn't you agree?  Or a woman, I suppose.”

He bit at the end of the sausage and chewed at it thoughtfully while the other three stared at him in concern.

“Or neither of those things.  Or both, even!  There are so many possibilities.”

Kurapika looked at him seriously from over their coffee cup.  “Were you dropped on your head as a child?”

“I’m making a legitimate observation, Kurapika, please don’t question my mental state.  It’s rude.”

Kurapika just shrugged in response, looking unconvinced and maybe a little irritated.  Fortunately Gon decided that was a good moment to interject, climbing onto his knees on the picnic table bench so his presence could be more apparent at Leorio’s elbow.

“Are there?” he asked.  “A lot of possibilities?”

“Well, yeah.  It’s kind of like ice cream.  There are the two big flavors, chocolate and vanilla.”  Leorio picked up his fork and spoon and set them side by side on his plate to illustrate, even though they had nothing to do with ice cream.  “And those are great, and lots of people are perfectly happy with one of those two things.  But it’s not like those are the only two flavors, right?”

“No way!” Gon agreed quickly.  “There are tons of others!”

“Right.  And some of those are chocolate, but mixed with something else.  Or vanilla mixed with something else.  Or chocolate and vanilla mixed together!  And then there are some that aren’t chocolate or vanilla at all, but something else entirely.”

Gon sat back on his heels and thought about this seriously for several long minutes while Leorio continued chewing his sausage, Killua scraped the syrup from his plate with a fork, and Kurapika cut through their pancakes with frightening precision.  Leorio felt an increasing concern that either their knife or fork or both might end up in one of his vital organs, and he wasn’t prepared for the level of first aid that would require.

“But,” Gon said finally, one finger in the air, “all of those different ice creams have names, but when it comes to people, there’s only ‘boy’ and ‘girl.’  So if you meet someone who’s not one of those things, how do you know?”

“The polite thing to do is just ask.  Even if you think you know.  Sometimes people look like boys but are really girls.  Or look like girls but are really neither.  Or look like they could be neither but are really a boy.  Or any combination of things.  So it’s best to ask.”

Gon looked conflicted, mouth twitching up and to the side, and Leorio wondered if his explanation had made as much sense as he thought, or if he’d gone off on his own track and lost him.  Kurapika was frowning in a way that suggested they were preparing some kind of refute behind their pursed lips, hands on either side of their plate, eyebrows knit together on their forehead.

Then, unexpectedly, Killua pulled the fork out of his mouth and said, “Like Alluka.”

Gon blinked exactly three times, then his mouth opened in a round O that was almost as wide as his eyes, one fist slamming into the other hand to punctuate his epiphany.  “I get it!”

Killua grinned.  “You think the old man is in the office today?”

“Let’s go see!”  Gon spun around and practically leapt from the picnic table, and just like that, apparently, the conversation was over and Leorio’s impromptu lesson on gender identity had been processed, accepted, and integrated without further question.  Killua grabbed the crutches from where they were propped against the bench and chased after Gon with surprising speed, and both of them were all but out of sight before Leorio could procure any further comment.

“I’m not sure what just happened,” he said after the boys’ voices had died away and a long period of silence passed, speaking to no one in particular—except Kurapika, who was still there.  “But okay.”

“I’m not sure either, since nothing you said made any sense.”  Kurapika had given up on what little remained of their pancakes and folded their arms on the edge of the table, coffee cup in one hand, held almost defensively in front of their face.

“Didn’t it?”

Kurapika seemed conflicted, jaw clenching like they wanted to be angry at him but weren’t really.  “Is there something you want to ask me?  Because after that crack about the razors yesterday I thought you might, but you still haven’t.  You saved yourself with that smooth response when I asked you what you see when you look at me, but I’m not convinced.  So just ask.  I’m tired of playing this game.”

Leorio paused, tripped up too early in the sentence for a proper response.  “Smooth?”

“That is what I said, yes.”

“You thought that was _smooth_.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

A grin crawled onto Leorio’s face that was probably ill-advised, especially when it coupled with leaning his elbows on the table, propping his chin in one hand, squinting a bit when Kurapika scowled.  “So I’m smooth, huh.”

“Would you please drop it.”

“Would you say it was in a suave way or more… rugged?”

“I am never complimenting you again.”

Leorio kept up the joke for several more seconds, toothy grin tilting further in Kurapika’s direction as their scowl deepened, then he sighed, expression dropping, keeping his position but rubbing his own cheek idly.  “I was actually terrified.  I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.”

“Just stop.”  Kurapika was scowling less, looked more like they had the day before, sitting on the washing machine while Leorio tried to apologize.  “Just ask the question.  Just do it and get it over with.”

Silence stretched for a long minute while Leorio considered the tightness in Kurapika’s voice, and the kind of question they seemed to be anticipating.  He had a small arsenal of possibilities stored in the less pleasant files of his memories, ranging from innocuous but ignorant to outright dehumanizing.  “Okay,” he said, in a tone that he hoped was gentle without being condescending.  “You’re right.  There is something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

The way Kurapika tensed up and didn’t look at him was telling.

_So are you_ actually _a guy or…?_  Was the mocking voice in the back of Leorio’s mind, and he opened his mouth and said, “What pronouns should I call you by?”

Kurapika’s mouth opened slightly, like they were already prepared to respond to the other question—or whatever they had imagined that was probably just as invasive and belittling.  The pause that followed was less tense, more bewildered, and Leorio waited through it, patiently, chin in his hand.

“He,” Kurapika said.

Leorio grinned.  “Okay.”

Kurapika paused again, for the space of maybe five heartbeats.  “Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re just going to take my word for it, when I say that I’m a man.  You’re not going to question it because I’m small and pretty and dress like a girl and have a high-pitched voice and practically no body hair to speak of.”

“I figure you know better than I do, so no, I’m not going to question it.”

Kurapika’s mouth pursed into a flat line, eyes narrowing, scrutinizing Leorio across the table like he expected a punchline.  “I can’t tell if you’re being genuine or if you’re trying to impress me.”

“Well.”  Leorio considered his own motivations, but they were all honest enough—even if he did kind of want to impress Kurapika, he didn’t want to do it under false pretenses.  “To be honest, it’s probably both of those things.  But I’m not just telling you what I think you want to hear, either.  If I ask you to tell me who you are, it’s my job to accept whatever you say, not your job to prove it.”

The scrutiny continued for another minute or two, during which Kurapika’s mouth twitched frequently and Leorio propped both hands under his chin, staring back guilelessly until Kurapika relented and looked down, but he was smiling, just a little.

Leorio smiled back, all teeth.  “So?”

“For some reason I really want to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I’m going to stand by my original assessment of you.”  Kurapika stood up and began stacking the breakfast dishes, collecting all but their two mugs and the spoons resting idly alongside them.  “Would you like some more coffee?”

“Sure,” Leorio said, and waited until he had disappeared into the caravan before silently pumping one fist in victory.  He was back in Kurapika’s good graces _and_ knew his identity and everything from the tips of his hair to the soles of his feet were warm through and tingling in the wake of that small pink smile.

_But you’re leaving soon_ , a little voice in the back of his head reminded him. _Probably today._

_I’ll get his number_ , Leorio thought back, suddenly thrumming with possibilities to the point he thought he might vibrate right off of the bench.   _I’ll get his email.  I’ll come back to visit.  I’ll figure something out_.

Somehow or other, he would make sure that Kurapika remained in his world.

 

 

All but two of Killua’s Pokemon had fainted, and he had maybe five minutes left before Gon came back and wanted a turn. Using up his health potions seemed like a waste with those odds.  He was sitting on the manager’s office counter, back against the window frame, crutches propped against the ledge alongside him, playing on a handheld that was arguably older than he was. A makeshift AC adapter was plugged into the wall somewhere inside to compensate for the ridiculously short battery life.

The manager was actually in the office, as they anticipated; Netero was deceptively spry for an old man who was mostly bald, with a wrinkled face under a beard that curled up at the end.  Killua harbored a deep suspicion that he was actually a gnome of some kind, or perhaps some other creature that purposefully looked old and feeble so that young dumb kids like him would underestimate him.

Killua seesawed back and forth between admiration and resentment, without a whole lot of neutral ground in between.

Today Netero was wearing a shirt patterned with palm trees, and was stroking that oddly curled beard idly while he shuffled through a pile of papers on the desk below the counter.  Killua didn’t know what purpose the papers served, and didn’t much care—he was concerned, however, with the stash of sugar pops the old man kept in his desk drawer, and wondered idly as he fought off a Growlithe how many more questions he was going to have to answer before he got one.

“So this young man said he was a doctor?”

“He’s a CNA and a med student.”

“And how long has he been here?”

“Since Friday night, it sounds like.”

“And how many times has he tried to leave so far?”

“Twice.”  Killua’s Charizard fainted and he scoffed out of the corner of his mouth, thumbing through the menu for a potion after all.  “The first time he ran into us, then yesterday his bike tires went flat and there was a storm.”

“Mm.”  Netero nodded as though this was to be expected, and opened a desk drawer.  Killua looked over with interest, but he only pulled out a notepad and pen.  “Is anyone else involved?”

“We’re all staying with Kurapika.”

“Oh?” the old man replied with a deliberate note of curiosity.

Killua grumbled at the screen and amended, “Well, we’re staying on his lawn.  I’m not sure why any of this matters.”

Netero chuckled, reaching back into the desk drawer and tugging out a cellophane-wrapped sugar pop in the shape of a bear’s head.  “Humor an old man.  There’s not much else to take interest in around here.”

“Right.”  Killua didn’t believe him, even after he’d unwrapped the pop and filled his mouth with the taste of white chocolate.  He wouldn’t have told him a damn thing if Gon hadn’t started it, regaling Netero with every last thing that had happened in the three days he was gone, then disappearing to fetch Leorio with a serious look over his shoulder.

_We can trust him_ , Gon had said once when Killua expressed his doubts.   _He wouldn’t ask questions if the answers weren’t important._

So Killua answered, eyeing the old man suspiciously along the length of his lollipop stick.

“It’s going to be a long summer,” Netero commented after a heavy pause, staring past Killua’s shoulder at the front door.  “Unexpected things might happen.  Keep your eyes and ears open, and stay close to Gon.”

Killua paused the game without looking at it, thumbs over the buttons, and stared back at Netero for several seconds.  He made a noise through his teeth, more dismissive than he felt, and closed out of the game until it refreshed to the title screen.  “I don’t need you to tell me that.”

Netero hummed doubtfully, scribbling something on the notepad, and the door squeaked open.

Gon’s voice was mid-sentence, either a detailed explanation or extended pleasantry, and either way Killua didn’t pay enough attention to it to process the words.  Leorio appeared through the entrance first; Gon was propping the door open on his heels, partly to be polite and partly because he loved jumping inside onto the concrete and letting it bang closed as loud as possible.  Killua counted to five, waiting for it, and covered his ears with perfect timing.

Netero and Leorio both winced, and Gon pushed open the office door without permission or preamble, letting himself and Leorio inside.  Netero didn’t mind, of course, but Killua couldn’t not observe Gon’s lack of concern for personal space.  “This is Netero, he’s the manager.  Can Leorio use the phone?”

Leorio was built like a tetherball pole with two volleys, and hunched over habitually in a way that either meant he was trying to make himself smaller or was too used to being in rooms that weren’t big enough for him, among people who were significantly shorter.  Killua suspected the latter, since he was a ridiculous gangling giant.  Somehow he managed to look sharp in a suit regardless, at least when he was actually wearing all the pieces and had his tie properly tightened.

“Well, that’s fine,” Netero said, benign as a duck pond in spring.  “Where do you need to call out to?”

“Zaban City.”

“Oho.”  Netero cleared his throat and rolled aside in his chair to open another desk drawer.  “In that case you’ll need the long distance code.  I have it here somewhere, just hold on…”

Gon climbed onto the desk until he was sitting just slightly below Killua, head bumping against his elbow until he handed over the game.

“You’ll want to go right back into town and heal up.  Don’t try to fight anything.”

Gon made a noise of agreement and Killua bit one of the ears off of his bear pop, watching over his shoulder and ignoring the two adults in the room, who were blustering around and talking about nothing.  He didn’t much care about whatever they were doing, and it wasn’t his business or his problem.  It seemed equally likely that Netero couldn’t find the telephone code because he’d misplaced it, or because he didn’t want Leorio to have the opportunity to make a call out today.

Again, not Killua’s business.  Not his problem.  Just a slight irritation in the back of his mind.

So it happened that he was bent over Gon’s head, indicating the way to get to the next town on the map he’d lost his bearings on, when Leorio’s voice rose to a frustrated pitch.  Everyone in the office went still and quiet, and Killua stuck the pop back in his mouth, watching Leorio’s shoulders tense, hands balled into fists, trying to keep his temper in check.  “You’re sure it won’t call out without the code?”

“Positive,” Netero said pleasantly, eyes curled up into half-moons.  “I’m very sorry, young man.  I’ll have to keep looking.”

Leorio was carefully but poorly reined in, managing to spit out a rough but polite, “Th—thank you for your time,” before turning on his heel and leaving, steps falling with deliberate, frustrated weight despite the fact that he made the effort to not let the broken front door slam behind him.  He was a walking contradiction.

Killua wasn’t bothered—he picked up Gon’s concern, the back of his hand pressing against Killua’s elbow, and he bumped it back in acknowledgment, but nothing was wrong.  Anger wasn’t frightening or threatening; it was an actual emotion and Leorio acted it out with almost comic exaggeration.

His brother never got angry.  He was always cold, always level, always expressionless.

“Netero,” Gon said, and his voice alone was chiding enough without having to elaborate.

The old man chuckled, almost but not quite apologetic, rolling his chair back to the main desk.  “Well, I can’t make things too easy for him.”

“I like Leorio,” Gon said, starting a new battle while he spoke and thumbing his way through it with ease.  “I’d like for him to stay longer, but I don’t want things to go bad for him here, either.”

“That’s a difficult order.”  Netero shuffled through his papers again idly and opened a drawer.  “I can’t control everyone here, and there are plenty who will act in their own interest.  He found his way in here and he’s going to have to find his way out, and no one can help him or protect him without making a deal.”

“Kurapika might.”

Killua had said it thoughtfully, the remaining ear on his bear pop between his teeth, considering how they’d hovered around each other the day before, when Leorio tried to leave on the bike.  It was kind of dumb and kind of gross and Killua didn’t think they were very suited for each other, but adults were strange creatures who made strange decisions that he didn’t always understand, and most of the time he accepted that.

But Gon and Netero both looked at him with wide eyes, their dumbfounded expressions so similar that Killua nearly spat out his chocolate in disgusted amusement.

Netero looked away first, hand back on his beard, more pensive than benevolent for once.  “That could end very badly for both of them.”  He pulled a paper out of his stack and passed it over Gon’s head to Killua.  “Could you give that to Kurapika when you go back?”

The sheet was just a utility bill for the lot.  Killua was struck, frequently, by how this strange place could also be so mundane.  A protection charm to wear around his neck and a strange set of rules for coming and going and interacting, and a metered monthly charge for water use.  No wonder Kurapika filled jugs from the spigot and used the central building for showers.

Killua made a noise of assent and Netero leaned over his desk, fingers steepled under his chin.  “I wonder what I did with that code.”

 

 

Leorio had the presence of mind to grab the door handle before it swung shut so that it only closed with a loud bump instead of a bang, and after he did it he wondered why.  There was a clawing sensation in the center of his chest that desperately wanted to throw a childish fit, to stomp around and throw things and yell until something went right for him, and the only thing really stopping that from happening was Adult Leorio feeling exhausted and saying no, no, that won’t solve our problems.

So instead he grit his teeth and shoved his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, and started walking.

“Oh, good morning!”

Leorio recognized the voice enough to look up, and recognized the rotund figure walking along a dirt rut to his left enough that he squinted a bit, and then remembered where he’d seen it before.  It felt like an eternity since Saturday, and not a mere 48 hours.  “Ahh, Tonpa, right?”

“Yes, and I’m surprised to see you still here!”  The round little man wandered up with a tote bag in one hand and a friendly wave.  “I thought you were going to use the pay phone at the grocery?”

“Well,” Leorio said, kicking one toe into the dirt under his foot, “some things came up.”

“Oh?  But the manager is in today, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but he can’t find the long distance code to call out from his phone.”

“Ah, I see.  That’s unfortunate.”  Tonpa rubbed his prickly chin with his free hand, staring at the door to the building as though expecting it to bang closed again all on its own.  “You know, I didn’t mention it before because you seemed on track to find your own way home, but there is a hiking trail that goes north through the forest from here to the highway.  It takes a couple of hours to make the trek, and you would have to flag down a ride once you got there, but if everything else is bust that might be the thing to do.”

“Oh yeah?”  Leorio tilted his head in a feeble attempt to look past the building, blocking his northern view, but recalled the forest that spread across the north end of the RV park.  “I suppose I’ll keep that in mind.  I’m going to make another crack at the grocery, though.”

Tonpa seemed disappointed—oddly so, eyes narrowed for just an instant—but it evaporated quickly and he smiled.  “Well, let me know if you want to give it a try.  I can guide you through.  It’s a nice healthy walk for a guy like me, after all.”

“I appreciate the offer.”

“Oh, and as long as I’ve run into you,” Tonpa continued, reaching one meaty hand into his tote bag, “maybe you could use some extra fuel.  It’s not exactly healthy eating, but it’s something.”

Leorio accepted an opaque tupperware box, shallow and rectangular, with one hand, presumably with some kind of food inside, and brightened a bit.  “Thanks.  Wow.  Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.  Don’t worry about returning the container, just enjoy.”

“Alright.”  Leorio stepped to the side, a little baffled by Tonpa’s friendliness and generosity but not unwilling to accept free food when it was offered.  He was a student, after all.  “Well then, I’d say _see you around,_ but ideally I won’t, so…”

“Not at all.”  Tonpa waved him off, veering to the side to go into the central building.  “Good luck, Leorio!”

The door banged shut and Leorio stared at the tupperware in his hand, its blue lid staring back benignly.  When it became clear that there would be no winner in this contest, he let out an indifferent huff and resumed walking.

He’d been hoping to return to the caravan in better spirits, perhaps with a friend on the way to pick him up, and on the way over had tried to think of something smooth and apologetic but positive to say to Kurapika when he got back.   _Well, my ride will be here in a couple of hours, so better get your fill of me while you can_ was the best he’d come up with, and now he felt silly about it.

Leorio didn’t mind that not being able to make a call or catch a ride meant he would get to spend more time with Kurapika.  He just wished it didn’t have to come at the expense of quite literally everything else in his life.  It was Monday, which meant he should have called his supervisor to get put on the roster for the week, now that finals were over, and by this time of morning it was already too late.  He could probably get in on standby to pick up shifts if someone else called out, but otherwise he was out of work for the week, which would have repercussions.  Work was his only income during the summer, and his meticulous emergency savings built off shavings from his paychecks and student aid were not what one might call robust.  He needed to work full time until fall semester, or something was going to go down the drain.

He wondered, momentarily, what would happen if he wasn’t back by next Monday, either.  How long it would be before someone wondered or tried to contact him.  Before he got fired.  Before his landlord tossed all of his possessions into the parking lot and padlocked his apartment door, plastered with an eviction notice.

Leorio’s hand clenched around the container.  He needed to get home.

He rounded the end of the caravan to see that the awning was rolled back, perhaps to allow the lawn to finish drying out after the storm from the day before.  Kurapika had stashed the sleeping bags just inside his front door to save them from the deluge, and the awning kept part of the lawn dry enough to sleep on.  The sky was clear and blue today, the sun already warm, and by evening the damp clinging to the grass should have evaporated away.

More importantly, though, the muddy brown bike was upturned next to the picnic table, one wheel missing and lying deconstructed against the bench, and Kurapika sitting quietly behind the frame, thumbs working their way around the length of the flat inner tube.

Leorio’s steps slowed, not yet crunching through the gravel drive and attracting Kurapika’s attention.  He was wearing a green shirt today, with a plunging v-neckline that flattered his chest and shoulders and the barely perceptible tendon that led from where his earring was dangling against his neck down to his collarbone.  Leorio may or may not have spent an undue amount of time appreciating this, overly aware of his own tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth.

His body eventually moved of its own accord, maybe because it realized better than his brain that he needed to stop staring, and the gravel under his feet alerted Kurapika to his presence.  He looked up from the tube, eyebrows up for an instant, then his face softened into a light smile.  “You’re back already?”

Leorio sighed heavily, crossing the grass in a few quick strides and dropping the tupperware on the table.  “So the manager has a phone, but the city is long-distance from here and you have to use some kind of code to call out.  He said he’d try to find it.”

Kurapika had the grace to look irritated on his behalf.  “Well, that’s annoying.”

“It is.  Thanks for thinking so.”

“If I can find the leaks in these, you may yet have a functional bike by the end of the day.”

“Don’t say such things out loud or you’ll jinx me.”  Leorio rounded the table and flopped onto the bench on the other side, nearest the fire pit, eyeing it in thought.  “Do we need a fire for lunch?”

“I was thinking I might just make grilled cheese on the stove inside.”

Leorio hummed, stomach making a low noise of approval.  “I feel bad that we keep eating your food.”

“Well whenever you manage to get to the grocery you can bring some back,” Kurapika suggested, pausing on a patch of rubber that he eyed with suspicion.  Then amended rather quickly, “Or send it with Gon, if you find a ride.”

“Do you usually get food from there?  I mean, I assume you do, since it’s the only place nearby, but…”

“I have it delivered.  Most people here do.  It comes around on Thursday.”

Leorio figured that the lack of functional vehicles in the neighborhood was patently obvious, but it sounded like the store might own something, if they made deliveries.  There was another potential option for him, in a pinch.

Gon and Killua’s voices were audible from a distance, along with the steady rattle of crutches, for perhaps a minute or more before they appeared around the end of the caravan.  Killua still had the remains of whatever candy pop he’d obtained from the manager in his mouth, and Gon bounced forward eagerly when he saw the upturned bike and Kurapika carefully applying a patch to the rubber tube.  Killua dug a folded paper out of his pocket once he was near enough and handed it to Kurapika, who unfolded it, sighed heavily, and set it aside.

“Lunch soon?” Gon asked, rocking on his toes.

Kurapika remained focused on the tube in his hands.  “In a bit.”

Leorio twisted around on the bench so he could talk across the table properly, and point to the container he’d left there.  “If you’re hungry, you can have some of whatever’s in that.”

“Oh?” Gon climbed onto the bench brimming with curiosity, Killua close behind, dropping one of the crutches so he could get a knee onto the bench as well.  “What is it?”

“I don’t know.  Open it.”

Gon popped the corner of the lid up, pushing it back slowly like he was unwrapping a present, and both boys’ eyes lit up as bright and round as saucers.

“CUPCAKES!” Gon announced, and Kurapika’s head whipped up.

Leorio wasn’t entirely certain what happened next.  He remembered that first day, with the firewood, and the spider, and how he didn’t really think he’d seen Kurapika knock it to the ground before stepping on it.  Everything happened so fast, and he was sure later he’d imagined it.

He didn’t remember seeing Kurapika stand up, or move, or grab Gon and Killua by the wrists just as their hands dove into the tub of sugary treats—but suddenly he was standing there, holding both of them, their fingers sticky with icing, and for a fraction of a second Leorio thought he saw something red.

“Gon,” Kurapika said sharply, and Gon made a noise of recognition, eyes widening.  Killua blinked, dazed, uncertain what was happening or why Gon’s expression was falling slowly into reflective horror.

“Go wash it off,” Kurapika said, voice low and tight, releasing the two boys and grabbing up the hand towel he had resting on the bench to wipe the dust off the bike.  “Help Killua.  Don’t get icing on the crutches or you’ll have to wash those, too.”

Gon did as he was told, uncharacteristically cowed, taking the offered towel and helping Killua hobble across the lawn to the water spigot.  

Leorio didn’t remember standing up, but he realized he was on his feet once Kurapika snatched up the container of cupcakes and rounded the table to face him, radiating displeasure like he was on fire.

“Where did you get these?”

Leorio could hardly feel the several inches of space between the top of his head and Kurapika’s.  He might as well have been five feet tall.  “From a guy I ran into the first day I was here.  Tonpa.”

“Tonpa,” Kurapika repeated, like the name left a bitter, disgusting taste in his mouth, and he turned on his heel, storming off past the wood pile and around the back of the trailer.  Leorio didn’t move from his spot, completely lost on what was going on, staring after Kurapika dumbfounded.

...cupcakes were bad?

He hadn’t mentally resolved anything and hadn’t moved from his spot when Kurapika reappeared, apparently satisfied now that the tupperware and its contents were disposed of, expression less enraged, closer to neutral.  “Leorio, will you build that fire after all?  We’ll roast some hot dogs.”

“All right,” he said, still blinking and confused, but Kurapika didn’t offer any kind of explanation, just rounded the table to meet the boys as they returned from the water spigot, checking over their hands to make sure there were no remaining sticky spots.

Leorio stripped off his jacket and tie, accepting that he was in for another day of life on Kurapika’s front lawn, and built the fire in a continuing state of confusion.  Killua seemed to feel similarly, frowning alternately at Gon, who looked more miserable than Leorio had ever seen him, and Kurapika, who was back in benevolent caretaker mode, armful of food and condiments from his yet unseen kitchen, instructing the boys to wipe down a handful of metal roasting prongs.

The bike project was moved aside so the four of them could sit together at the table once everyone had a paper plate with a bun or two and a steaming hot dog browned over the fire.  Leorio watched Kurapika eat with perhaps too much interest, which he might have noticed, but he only brushed some mustard off the corner of his mouth with a napkin and said, unexpectedly, “I apologize for getting angry earlier.”

Gon, who had started to look more chipper while meticulously roasting his pair of hot dogs, sank down in his seat.  “I’m sorry.  It’s my fault.”

“No, don’t say that.  Nothing bad happened, so there’s no use dwelling on it.”

“I don’t get it,” Leorio said, both hands dropping to the table, not really meaning to make a loud noise but doing it anyway.  “They were cupcakes.  I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“I don’t either,” Killua echoed.

“I do, though,” Gon said, “and I should have known better.”

Kurapika breathed out through his nose, folding his hands over the table in front of him.  “Killua, Leorio.  You should know, as long as you’re here, that you shouldn’t eat anything unless you know where it came from.  Food from the vending machines, from the store, the fish that Gon catches.  Anything that’s packaged, those things are fine.  But if someone offers you something homemade, refuse it.”

Killua frowned, looking mostly at Gon.  “Like how they tell you not to eat Halloween candy that isn’t store bought?”

“Yes, that’s a good analogy.”

“So you’re saying that people around here might put poison or razor blades in food and then just hand it out to people randomly,” Leorio deadpanned.

“Something like that.”  Kurapika glanced sharply at Gon when it looked like he was going to apologize again, then up at Leorio, expression flat and serious.  “It might not make sense to you, but please just trust me.  While you’re at it, don’t tell anyone your full name, either, and don’t leave any of your personal possessions lying around.  Especially anything small.”

“Well,” Leorio said, “that’s great, considering my wallet is still missing.  That’s both small _and_ has my full name.”

The table was silent for a moment, and Gon’s expression changed to something sharp and disapproving, directed pointedly across the table at Killua.  Killua scowled back for an equally long moment, then sighed like he was terribly put upon and dug into his pocket.

Leorio’s wallet appeared in his hand, and he held it up without looking directly at him.  “Here.  Sorry.”

“What,” Leorio gaped, not quite believing what he was seeing, then snatched the wallet out of Killua’s hand.  “What the hell!”

“I stole it when you found us on the road.  Don’t worry, I didn’t take anything out of it.  There was nothing worth taking, anyway.”

Leorio wasn’t sure whether to be furious about the theft or offended that it hadn’t even been worth the thief’s while.  “So you just randomly steal people’s wallets when you meet them?”

“Yes,” Killua said, remorseless.

“And other things, sometimes,” Gon added, with at least some measure of humility.

Leorio opened his mouth, about to give them the lecture of a lifetime and maybe turn his ire on Kurapika as well for sitting there and not saying a word, but then Killua looked up at him sideways and said, “So we can eat.”

His mouth remained open for another second, and then it closed, and he deflated.

“Thanks for returning it,” he said reluctantly, at length, and Kurapika smiled at him across the table.

 

 

Kurapika insisted, once the tires were repaired, that Leorio take the bike out around the park and perhaps out to the treehouse to make sure that they would actually retain air, so Gon spent the rest of the day on his dirt bike leading Leorio around the rutted dirt roads, pointing out areas of interest (to himself, anyway) and then taking a quick spin out on the paved road as far as the dead end and back.  It was late afternoon when they returned, and Killua was sitting on the end of the picnic table practicing yoyo tricks.

Gon checked the tire pressure with Kurapika’s gage, and it was the same as when they left.  It took surprisingly little to convince Leorio to let the bike sit overnight, just to be sure the extra stress they’d put on it didn’t loosen any of the patches.  He suspected it might have to do with how Leorio spent the remainder of the evening after dinner with Kurapika, sitting on the side of the picnic table that faced the sunset, talking quietly.  Killua made faces at their backs, and Gon elbowed him in the ribs until he paid more attention to their Pokemon game.

Guilt sat heavy and uncomfortable in his chest, though, especially once there was nothing to distract him from it—after the sky was dark and glittering with stars and the only sounds he heard were Leorio’s light snore and crickets chirping in the vacant lot two spaces away.  Gon folded his arms behind his head, staring up at the underside of the caravan awning and the frame of night sky around it, mind too tense with thought for sleep.

Killua shifted beside him, fluffy hair the only thing visible until his hand tugged the blanket down enough to poke his nose out.  His voice was so quiet it almost faded into the background with the rest of the nighttime sounds around them.  “Gon.”

He turned his head towards the sound of Killua’s voice, an equally low noise in his throat acknowledging him.

“What would have happened, if we ate the cupcakes?”

Gon closed his eyes, as if doing so would remove the knowledge of how badly he’d almost screwed up, how much danger he’d put Killua in.  “We’d never be able to leave.”  Killua’s breath catching was like a punch in the gut.  “We’d probably forget that anything existed other than this place.  Maybe worse, I don’t know.  I was careless.  And I’m sorry.  I asked you to trust me and I made a dumb mistake anyway.”

He almost wanted Killua to sit up and yell at him, to tell him how awful and neglectful he was, that he couldn’t possibly make up for such a critical blunder that would have cost both of them their lives, even if they didn’t actually die.  Something inside him whispered that he deserved it.

But Killua rolled onto his side and whispered, “It’s okay.  I forgive you.  We’re both alright, so I forgive you.”

Gon felt something twist up in his throat, like he was going to cry, so instead he grit his teeth and rolled over, wrapping both arms tight around Killua’s fluffy head until his friend squirmed in protest.

“That’s dumb,” he said, “but okay.”

“ _You’re_ dumb,” Killua muttered from under his elbow.

Neither of them moved again, and eventually, without realizing it, Gon fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Her fingers bumped fabric, and a thumbtack popped out of the inside of the door, flying into one of the shoes; a small, stuffed-full drawstring pouch dropped into her hand. It was simple burlap, with a curving symbol on the front painted in black.  
>  “Oh shit,” Bisuke said aloud, flailing and nearly dropping the pouch before thinking better of it. “Shit. Good job, Bisuke, just grab the strange object that you can’t see in a house where someone blew up the basement with a summoning circle. Brilliant.”_
> 
> In which Bisuke violates a number of standard law enforcement operating procedures and Leorio makes a proposal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long omg I am so sorry. I'm in the process of moving to Seattle and finding an apartment was sort of a nightmare. Life has been stressful and every time I looked at this chapter I was unreasonably disappointed with it. I'm probably just being too self-critical though--so here it is! Finally! I'll try to get the next one up by next weekend to make up for the delay.
> 
> Thank you everyone for your kind messages and support, it means a lot to me.

> _stone hard machine gun_
> 
> _firing at the ones who run_
> 
> _stone hard like bulletproof glass_

* * *

The road leading to the Zoldyck mansion was blocked, which wasn’t surprising—but Biskue could see that, a short distance past the orange cones and the police officer bent over the window of the Mercedes Benz in front of her less impressive Subaru, the gated entrance was significantly less occupied by flashing lights and various emergency and government-plated vehicles than it had been on the newscast.  She wiggled her nose underneath her sunglasses and contemplated how professional she looked, if there might be spinach stuck in her front teeth, then belatedly reached across the dash to open the glove box and dig through it for her ID.

Five minutes later the traffic cop was waving at her to back up so the Mercedes could turn around and she was panicking slightly, concocting some story for why she ought to be poking around at a crime scene, when she finally felt the rough outline of her lanyard and grabbed on for dear life.

Somehow she managed to put the car in reverse without incident and only yanked half of the contents of the glove box out along with the ID badge.

The cop was eyeing her suspiciously when she pulled forward, and she hoped it was because her car didn’t fit the neighborhood and _not_ because he’d seen her flailing around like an idiot.  She did have the presence of mind to actually check and make sure she had the correct badge before rolling down her window and presenting the officer with a sunny smile.

“Ma’am,” he began, “there’s been a—”

“Yes, I know.  That’s why I’m here,” she said, in what she liked to think of as her teacher voice—the controlled, firm tone she used when she needed to be taken seriously.

The officer gave her ID a dubious glance.  “Child Protective Services?  Which unit called you out?”

“No one did.  I’ve been investigating the Zoldyck family for the last year.  I have authorization from my department to investigate the premises for evidence of abuse and neglect and take any underage children into state custody.”

The officer stepped back and pulled a radio out, and Bisuke didn’t bother to avoid eavesdropping.  “SAC, this is the south block, over.  I have a social worker here from CPS, please advise.”

A moment later static crackled over the radio and a distorted voice replied, “This is SAC. You can send them up, but there weren’t any children on site when EMS arrived.”

“What?”  Bisuke leaned out the window as far as she could, tempted to grab the radio from the cop and demand what the person on the other end meant by that.  “How could there—?”

“You’ll have to ask the agent in charge.  Driscoll.  By the front gate.”  The cop pointed out someone in the distance, tall and dark-skinned with a gray trenchcoat, then circled to the front of her car to move the cones so she could proceed.

Bisuke frowned the rest of the way up the drive, considering the implications of the first responders not finding any children in the house.  They could be with the parents, who were now on the run, or they could have fled after the explosion and were now wandering the city by themselves.  How long would it take to find them, if that were the case?

She parked behind a gold sedan with federal plates, took a deep breath, tossed the lanyard around her neck, and instinctively reached for her phone.  The LED was flashing, and she thumbed the screen to life to see a text from Wing.

_You forgot to ask for a protection charm_ , it read, and a photo was attached.

“Still hoping I won’t need it, I guess,” she said aloud, but maximized the image—just a simple symbol—and locked the phone with it still open.

She left the sunglasses on the dash, slung her purse over her shoulder, and stepped out of the car to do battle.

Special Agent in Charge Driscoll didn’t look terribly happy about anything when she approached him, but at least his expression stayed pretty much the same when he spotted her.  “CPS?”

“Yes.”  She had her mouth open to continue but wasn’t really surprised when he didn’t let her.

“We’ve searched the house and the grounds from top to bottom.  The only people here were the two older brothers, and they’re in district lockup waiting for arraignment.  If there were ever any children here, they’re not here now.”

“There _were_ children living here.  I know there were at least two under 18.”  Bisuke tried not to frown too much, drew her shoulders up, looked the agent in the eye until he seemed uncomfortable.  “Even if they’re not here now, my office has been trying to get a warrant for a home investigation for months.”

“Did you have a report?”

“We received an anonymous tip.  We think it was from a school counselor, and we’re not surprised they didn’t want to reveal themselves considering who the family is.”

“That makes sense, but it’s harder to get a warrant with that kind of evidence.”  The agent was gruff but not necessarily dismissive, and glanced through the gate over the scene in contemplation.  Yellow tape circled a blackened gash in the side of the manor, cut through brick and wood and blasted up through the dirt and the manicured gardens.  It seemed smaller in real life, somehow.  “Well, the building is structurally sound, and just about everyone else is done collecting from the scene, so it’s no skin off my back to let you in.  You have jurisdiction.”

“Thank you.  Is there any chance an APB could be put out for the children?”

“We’d need pictures, or at least descriptions.”

“There aren’t any family photos in the house?”

“There aren’t, at least not that any of my team found.”  He glanced up to the house briefly and back to her.  “You should probably take a look inside.”

Driscoll turned to talk to two officers who approached him then, seemingly unconcerned with her, so Bisuke showed herself through the gate.  The gardens all around the east side of the manor had been trampled, probably by emergency services first and then by the investigators flooding the place once the aftermath of the explosion was under control.  She realized she’d forgotten to ask what had caused it, but with luck and a little stealth she might be able to get into the basement and have a look for herself.

The inside of the manor was just as spartan and impassive as the outside.  The foyer and living areas were high ceilinged, fairly practical as far as mansions went, but everything was uncomfortably pristine.  It looked more like a model home than a place that someone lived in, especially someone with children.  There were indeed no family photos on the walls, just some generic abstract art; there was nothing on the fridge _at all_ , not magnet souvenirs or phone lists or notes, let alone someone’s math test or crayon drawing.  Some of the furniture had been upended, and one detective with her shirt sleeves rolled up was methodically going through the kitchen with rubber gloves and an evidence kit.  A pair of local police officers emerged from the depths of the house and headed for the door, two duffel bags between them and drug dogs at their sides.  Bisuke couldn’t tell if they’d found anything.

The lack of evidence of a standard family life wasn’t necessarily evidence of neglect, as discomforting as it was.  The living, dining and kitchen areas were open air, well lit from the french doors that opened onto a veranda and skylights set into the high ceilings, and the hall the police officers came down was murky and dark by comparison.  She couldn’t imagine the basement was much better.

There were two other detectives at the end of the hallway near the steps that led up, but the basement stairs were just inside, the door hanging ajar and lights switched on.  They didn’t notice her when Bisuke slipped down, feet padding quietly on the carpet as the stairs curved back on themselves.

The stairs left her in a second living room with an adjoining kitchen, which seemed to serve as more of a mini bar than anything else, judging by the bottles lined up under the cabinets.  It looked slightly more lived in, although not by anyone much younger than 20 if the DVDs stacked under the television were any indication.  There were two rooms that opened off of the living area: one just to the left, completely dark except for the blue glow of three computer monitors, and one further back down a short hall, door ajar, daylight filtering through the dust in the air along with the sounds of the investigators outside.  Bisuke peered into the first room, flipped the light on only to find it taken up primarily by a desk loaded with computers, laptops, computer parts, and miscellaneous electronic gadgetry, punctuated by empty styrofoam cups, chip bags, and crumpled fast food wrappers, every wall fitted with shelving displaying bishoujo characters in various states of undress.

She considered taking a closer look at the running computer, but wanted to check the site of the explosion first.

There was not much left of the second room, and based on the small trail of blood marked off by numbered trivets that led out the door into the hall, someone had been caught in it to some extent.  The walls that remained were blackened, the hardwood floor singed clear up to the doorway, and bookshelves that once lined one corner were spilling over with ashes and half-burnt paper.

But on the floor, just below the explosion site, still clearly marked in red chalk and flanked with spent candles and a scatter of soot-covered stones, was a circle.

“Oh, no,” Bisuke said out loud, without thinking, and quickly checked behind her, listening to hear if anyone outside had heard.  She probably wasn’t supposed to be down here—yellow crime scene tape was strung across the doorway and number markers were placed all around the room--but she needed a good picture of that circle, and she needed to not have to explain _why_.

So after another glance around she slipped inside, padding extra carefully across the room, avoiding the evidence markers, avoiding any angles where she might be spotted through the hole in the upper corner, until she could crouch down and pull out her phone.

Wing’s charm stayed open in the background while she snapped several photos, one of the circle as a whole, closeups of the symbols around the edges, another of what were definitely blood spatters in the center.  Bisuke hurried away from it as quickly as she dared once she was done, skin crawling, and hid in the basement living room to send the entire volley of photos to Wing along with descriptions of the candle colors and directional layout, asking him to see if he could match the symbology up with a ritual—hoping it wasn’t what it looked like, but reasoning that it probably was.

Then she sent the main picture to Melody, who would show it to their superiors as “evidence of cult activity” but would also know that it meant much more than that.

Five minutes later, after she'd recited a cleansing charm to get the creep factor from that room out of her senses and was on her way back up the stairs, Melody replied to her text.

_This is bad._

Bisuke’s stomach flopped, and her breakfast omelet suddenly seemed ill-advised.   _It is_ , she sent back, noting that the main hallway was clear and making a beeline for the stairs to the upper level before she had to explain herself to anyone.   _I’ve sent the images to Wing for research._

_Be careful,_ was the reply, and Bisuke could practically hear Melody’s voice in her ear.   _If that’s a summoning circle, whatever they called up could still be there_.

“I know,” she murmured aloud, pulling Wing’s charm back up, and pocketed the phone.

The upstairs hall was quiet, daylight angling through open bathroom doors lit by skylights.  The first door on the left was the master bedroom, already turned over by previous investigators to the point that it wasn’t likely to be of any use to her.  If the two older brothers had lived downstairs, the other bedrooms on this level must belong to the younger children.

The first door on the right was closed, the knob squeaking with disuse when she turned it, but it swung open to reveal exactly what she was looking for.  A twin bed with cartoon sheets, a small TV with a game system attached, a desk laden with early-middle-school homework, its shelves full of action figures and animated films, brightly colored posters on the walls.  The room was lived-in—there were discarded clothes by the closet, the bed was unmade, empty disc cases scattered around the TV with bare discs themselves perched precariously on the stand.

But, she realized, noting the dust motes dancing in the air through the sunlight filtering through half-closed blinds, it hadn’t been lived in _recently_.  The papers on the desk had a light layer of dust on top, and a plate with a few uneaten—and now moldy—pizza crusts sat on the nightstand.  The closet and dresser were both open, with notable gaps in their contents, and the pillow from the bed seemed to be missing entirely.

Bisuke puzzled over this and gave the papers on the desk a closer look, noting they all had the same name across the top—Killua Zoldyck, the boy her anonymous informant had identified, and she felt even more certain that they were someone working at his school.

_He’s not particularly difficult, but enough so that some of the teachers are afraid of him, and some of the students, too… but more importantly, about once a week he comes in to the nurse’s office complaining of a stomachache, with a large bruise somewhere on his body.  He tries to pass it off as something from sports or horsing around, but he gets angry if anyone touches him or tries to get a better look.  Last time we were pretty sure he had a broken rib.  I tried to talk to the administrators, but everyone knows about his family.  Everyone is scared.  Including me._

There was one paper pinned up to the corkboard over the desk, an elementary-level math sheet,its serrated edge ripped from a workbook and an A+ written in red.  The name on the top read _Alluka_.

Bisuke hummed over this and gave the room another look over—it was hard to investigate properly with no one to interview, especially the kids involved, but there had to be something here.  Some clue, even a small one.

She noticed the cord that led under the bed by accident while checking the contents of the nightstand, and saw that there was an outlet behind it with a charger plugged in that disappeared behind the low headboard.  She dropped to her knees and pulled the blankets aside to peer underneath, sneezing once as her actions kicked up a bit of dust, and noted the neat row of storage tubs wedged under the bedframe.  She pulled one out, noting the plastic clinking within it was probably legos, and saw a blanket piled up like it had been cast off; nearer the head of the bed was a handheld game system plugged into the charger, and a few empty boxes of candy.

“I won’t give away your hiding spot,” she told the empty room, and pushed the bin back into place.

But if Killua Zoldyck wasn’t here, and hadn’t been for what looked like months—where _was_ he?

There were two other rooms on this level—the first was packed up, the bed stripped bare, boxes sitting on the bookshelves and around the desk.  If there were five Zoldyck children, which was the rumor, this one didn’t seem to live at home anymore and hadn’t even visited in a while, judging by the dust coating every surface.

The last room was open, but Bisuke stopped just outside the threshold, eye caught on a brassy fixture in the frame.  She drew the door shut and sure enough, there was a deadbolt installed on the outside.  She frowned fiercely and dug out her phone to take a picture, sending it direct to Melody with an angry emote that accurately conveyed her feelings on this matter.

_That’s never a good sign_ , Melody’s response agreed.

She pushed the door back open and stepped into the room, and noticed immediately that it smelled different than the others had—they’d been musty, a bit stale, stagnant and uninhabited.  This room smelled like dryer sheets, fruit candy, clean like soap and simple perfumes.  It smelled lived in, like someone had fallen asleep in the twin bed the night before after a bath.  The blinds were drawn up on the window, a small procession of animal figurines on the sill, and a pair of violet pajamas were tossed over the bed’s footboard.

The room was neater than Killua’s—the bed was made, all the toys were neatly arranged on the bookshelves around the room or stowed in bins.  A few workbooks were stacked to the side on the small desk, elementary school homework.  The television was still on when Bisuke moved further into the room and turned so she could see the face, set to a channel airing cartoons but muted.  Bisuke crouched down to check under the bed, wondering if the room’s occupant had the same hiding place as their brother, but there was only a flat piece of particleboard with a large puzzle spread across it, still in progress.

The closet door was ajar, and Bisuke opened it with only the slightest hope that a child might be crouched inside, hiding; she wasn’t surprised to find it occupied only by hanging dresses and a neat row of sneakers and mary janes.  She blew out a frustrated breath, checking the top shelf and shuffling through the clothing with some remote hope that she might find a further clue.

Then she noticed that the folding door wasn’t opening all the way on the left side.

She pushed it to test, and sure enough, there was some obstruction near the bottom.  Bisuke knelt down, pulled the door slightly open, and reached around the edge to grope for whatever it was.  Her fingers bumped fabric, and a thumbtack popped out of the inside of the door, flying into one of the shoes; a small, stuffed-full drawstring pouch dropped into her hand.  It was simple burlap, with a curving symbol on the front painted in black.

“Oh shit,” Bisuke said aloud, flailing and nearly dropping the pouch before thinking better of it.  “Shit.  Good job, Bisuke, just grab the strange object that you can’t see in a house where someone blew up the basement with a summoning circle.  Brilliant.”  She dug through her purse with her free hand and pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle, wriggling the ribbon ties open with her fingers so she could spread the black fabric on the floor, push the small wooden pentacle into the center and arrange four colored stones around it properly—not an ideal setup for curse-breaking, but easily better than nothing and portable on top of that.  She placed the pouch on top of the pentacle once everything was properly oriented, as well as she could assuming she was on the east end of the manor, and dove back into her purse for a travel-sized tumbler of salt.

She dumped some into her hand and tossed it across the pouch—and nothing happened.

Bisuke held her breath for a count of ten, and let out a relieved sigh.  “Well, that was dumb,” she murmured to herself, tugging the phone back out of her pocket and quickly dialing Melody’s number.

Her voice instantly soothed Bisuke’s nerves, better than aromatherapy or valium.  “How’s everything going?”

“Nearly got myself cursed, otherwise good.”  Bisuke tried to laugh a little, but it sounded nervous, and Melody made a startled noise in response so she continued quickly, “it’s not as bad as I’m making it sound, I just found a hex bag inside the little girl’s closet.”

“The one with the deadbolt on the door?”

“Yes.  I think her name is Alluka.”

“I didn’t think the Zoldyck’s had any daughters.  That’s not how the rumors go, anyway.”

“Well, it _is_ more and more acceptable for boys to wear dresses these days, but I just have a feeling.”  Bisuke found the thumbtack that escaped earlier, plucked it out of a white mary jane with a bow on the toe.  “I feel like this is a little girl’s room.  I’m not sure where she got a hex bag, though.”

“It’s not cursed?”

“No, I cleansed it and nothing happened.  I don’t think this is on par with what I saw in the basement.”  She picked up the pouch and propped the phone on her shoulder so she could tug the drawstring open, smelling anise and feverfew.  “This is hedge magic.”

“What’s inside?”

“Feverfew, for sure, I recognize the smell.  Some roots, I think one of them is angelica.  Anise.  A piece of malachite.”

“It’s a concealment charm.”

Bisuke prodded the contents and noticed that her fingers were smudged black, turned the pouch over and saw that the entire back of it was singed.  “Oh god.  It’s been burnt.”  She tugged on the closet door again and twisted her head inside to see the back.  There was a round, black spot in the paneling, burnt clean through the interior layer where the bag had been hanging.  “Melody, she was here.  She was in the closet while her brothers were casting the circle downstairs.  She might have even been here when the police arrived, but as long as this was in place they wouldn’t have found her.”

“What’s the symbol on the front?”

“A rune, but not one from any of the traditions I’m familiar with.”

“A combination of curves and dots?”

“Yes!”

“I think I know where she got it.”

Twisted inside the closet as she was, Biskue didn’t have much room to be enthusiastic, but she did spot something she hadn’t noticed on her initial sweep, wedged in the minute gap between the carpet and the baseboard, just inside the door.  “You know the alphabet?”

“No, but I know who does.”

Bisuke tugged at the corner of paper sticking up from the gap with her fingernail, and pulled out a short curling strip of photobooth pictures.  Black and white, in descending order, two kids posing for the camera—school picture perfect at first, then increasingly goofy down the roll until the last one showed both of their faces practically smooshed against the camera.  The taller of the two with pale, messy hair she guessed was Killua—the other, with long dark hair arranged neatly over her shoulders, in a smart blouse with a peter pan collar, was probably Alluka.

“I just found pictures,” Bisuke announced into the phone.  “I’m going to try and take a good shot of the first one for us.  The detective in charge will probably take the originals so they can put out an APB.”  But more importantly, “Who did she get the hex bag from?”

“I’ve had a suspicion for a while now, mostly intuition, but now I’m certain.  For her to have a charm like that, either she or Killua or both of them have been in contact with Gon.”

_Gon Freecs_ , Bisuke thought with a sigh that was probably audible over the line, but Melody wouldn’t mind.  The name was an epithet sometimes in their office, as often as the boy disappeared and as hard as he was to find again.  She glanced over the pouch, memorizing the symbol on the front, then set it back on top of the pentacle and wrapped her portable altar back up into a bundle.  “I’m going to bring it back for you to look at.  Gon ran away from his last foster home a while ago, though, didn’t he?  Did you ever get in touch with his father?”

“I’m still trying, but Ging has never been forthcoming or inclined to respond to me with any urgency.”

“Well, keep trying,” she said, slinging her purse back over her shoulder and standing, photos still in hand, puzzle pieces connecting in her head all at once.  “Alluka was definitely here last night, was possibly here up until a few hours ago, but Killua’s room hasn’t been used in months.  If this bag is Gon’s handiwork, then I’m willing to bet my next year’s salary that when he ran away, Killua ran with him.”

 

 

“How many times are you going to say goodbye to me?”

Kurapika was barefoot in the grass outside the caravan door, leaning back against it with his hands in his pockets, not looking directly at Leorio.  He was wearing the same pair of shorts he had the first day they met, with a white sleeveless button-down top that tied at the waist.  Sometimes when he moved a bit of gold-toned midriff would show in the gap between the taut edge of the cotton and the denim waistband.  More than once that morning Leorio found himself torn between that and watching how his legs crossed over each other when he sat—or, now, how they crossed at the ankle while he propped himself against the silver siding.

He told himself he was only looking because he probably wouldn’t get another chance, at least not anytime soon.  “Well,” he mused, scratching at the back of his head, “I’d prefer zero, but…”

Kurapika’s expression shifted fluidly from mild irritation to a faint smile, one Leorio was slowly getting used to seeing, and greatly preferred, even though it twisted his stomach into knots.

The awning had been pushed back again, so Leorio was able to tilt his head back and look up at the sky—bright blue, a few fluffy white clouds, no potential storm in sight.  He glanced from there to look over the caravan itself, considering the grass and weeds growing around the wheels, the empty hitch, the indent from the aluminum stairs digging into the ground.  He opened his mouth, and asked the question that had been lingering in the back of his mind since that first day.  “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

That nice smile disappeared, and Kurapika folded his arms defensively.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re out here in this place all alone, living in this—” he gestured towards the Airstream, not meaning to disrespect it in any way, but it was sort of intended for travel and not really for living in indefinitely, “and never really leaving.  I mean.  Do you work, somehow?  Are you independently wealthy?  I don’t really know and I’m kind of confused.”

Of course, Kurapika latched onto his comment about the camper.  “This was my parents’ caravan.  I was born in it and I grew up in it.  It was our home, and now it’s my home.”

Leorio didn’t miss those two drops of the word _was_ , but there was really no good way to address that.  How did you say, _oh, so your parents are dead, huh?_ and make it smooth and casual?  That was not the conversation he was trying to have—maybe another time, but not now.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

“Just… it’s a house on wheels, right?  So in theory at least, you could live in it anywhere.”

“In theory.”

Leorio felt his hands lacing together nervously and firmly told them to stop, shoved them into his pockets so they wouldn’t betray the sheer levels of awkward he felt any more than they already had.  “So uh… why not the city?”

Kurapika’s eyebrows crawled up on his forehead and Leorio felt compelled to continue babbling regardless of whether it made any sense.  “I mean, not that I’m asking you to—I don’t personally have a spot for you to park or anything but like, I’m sure there are places in town, I could probably look some up on the internet when I get home and I could totally come back here with my car and—well no it probably wouldn’t be able to tow this but I have friends who might have trucks or something.  Maybe.  I could ask.  Just.  If maybe you wanted…” he trailed off because Kurapika’s mouth was quirking up with a kind of placating amusement and he could feel his face starting to burn.  “It’s not gonna happen, is it?”

“No,” Kurapika said, “but it’s nice of you to offer.”

Leorio deflated, slowly, hunching at the waist because he suddenly felt too tall for himself and the amount of confidence left in his body.  “Ahh, I figured it was a longshot.  I guess it’s kind of weird, being asked to move, just so… just like that,” he recovered, mouth tripping over itself, almost blurting out _just so I can see you once in a while_ out loud.  He slumped more until his face was as close to the ground as it could get while he was still upright.  “Um.  Can I get your phone number, then?”

Kurapika paused for a long, quiet moment, and Leorio practically squirmed not knowing what expression was on his face—all he saw, eventually, were Kurapika’s ankles uncrossing and his weight shifting onto his feet.

“Sure.”

Leorio didn’t know what to do with himself after Kurapika slipped into the caravan other than stand there, gradually straightening to his full height, feeling like there were dozens of little fireworks going off around his head.  Gon and Killua’s voices piped up again and again off to his right but he didn’t quite register them as anything other than ambient background noise.

Kurapika reappeared with a folded piece of paper in one hand, a strange but pleased expression on his face that wasn’t quite a smile.  He tugged Leorio down closer to his level by the tie, neatly slipping the paper into his breast pocket.  Leorio realized immediately that their faces were too close, and Kurapika seemed to realize the same thing an instant later, glancing up, pausing with his breath caught for a moment that was probably a fraction of a second but felt like a short eternity, Leorio’s heart hammering in his chest like it wanted to escape.

The moment ended, though, when Kurapika let him go and tilted his face down, smoothing Leorio’s tie back into place, tugging his lapel straight, clearing his throat and stepping back.  “Don’t call in the middle of the night or anything, okay?”

“Right,” Leorio said, mouth oddly dry, pulse gradually slowing in a way that felt like disappointment.  “I’ll remember that.”  Well, Sober Leorio would remember that.  Drunk Leorio probably would not.

Gon’s feet in the gravel distracted him from staring at the top of Kurapika’s head and trying to come up with some clever turn of phrase to exit on.  Killua was standing in the road, having walked around enough to satisfy Leorio that his ankle was stable and he could make the trip to the crossroads with them on his skateboard.  Honestly, Leorio wasn’t completely convinced, but the swelling had been gone when he checked it that morning, and Killua'd agreed to keep it braced for a few more days, so he relented.

“Are you ready?” Gon asked, bouncing on his heels, looking back and forth between them without the vaguest clue what was going on.

“Uhm.  Yeah.”  Leorio took one step to the side, then one backwards, hand scratching through his hair a few times like it would dislodge his thoughts and drag something out of his mouth.  “I guess… I’ll talk to you later?”

Kurapika looked back up with a smile that seemed a little off somehow, like it was out of place, or forced unwillingly onto his face.  “Yeah.”  He crossed his arms over his stomach, tucked close to his body almost like he was cold.

Leorio took a couple more steps back, raising one hand in a wave and then feeling dumb about the gesture and quickly shoving in in his pocket before he turned on his heel and grimaced at the ground, at himself for being such an idiot, at the world in general for dropping such a perfect person in front of him at the most inopportune moment.

_He’s not perfect, though_ , that little voice in the back of his head that might be reason or something else entirely chided.   _You don’t really know that much about him.  You don’t really know who he is_.

Leorio flicked up the kickstand on his bike with one toe, wheeling it out to the dirt road where the boys were waiting.  Killua kicked his skateboard up into his hands when Leorio approached and scratched at his ear with his pinkie when Leorio started scolding him about taking it easy and not putting his leg under too much stress.  Gon pedaled in between them with a sunny smile and assured him it would be fine.

They were halfway to the entrance, bumping along the uneven ruts and kicking up dust behind them, when Leorio looked back over his shoulder.  Not because he was feeling wistful, really, or for any particular reason—or so he told himself, anyway.  He didn’t expect to be able to see that far, but as sparsely populated as the RV park was, he still had a clear line of sight back to the silver Airstream, glinting in the late morning sun.

Kurapika was still standing on the front lawn, arms folded, watching them, exactly as he’d left him.  Leorio swallowed hard, jerking his head back around to pay attention to the road, something deep and melancholic aching in his chest.

_Who are you?_ he thought, and curled his fingers tighter on the handlebars.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The sky grew dark while Leorio grew frustrated, too certain that this deserted gas station was his best bet at getting home, too stubborn to take up the bike propped against the wall around the corner and just pedal his way back to the park. By the time the sun was sinking over the horizon he was angry, at everything and everyone, maybe at himself, mostly at the road and how it was quiet and empty._
> 
> In which Leorio comes to realize the gravity of his situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it has been a very long time for a variety of reasons and I finally decided to forego a beta just to get this sucker up. I hoped to have it up last night for Halloween, since this is where the story starts to get spooky, but I was busy writing up treats on tumblr, so. Happy November 1st/Time Change Day instead. Enjoy your creepy Hisokas.

> _out where the dreams all hide_   
>  _out where the wind don't blow_   
>  _out here the good girls die_   
>  _and the sky won't snow_

* * *

The gas station and grocery took up the left corner of the crossroads in a decidedly normal fashion, a simple rectangular building with a red tiled roof paired with a covered service station, four gas pumps arranged around trash bins and squeegee barrels, and the sign was a simple ball on top of a post with the number 44 in black.  The parking stalls in front of the store were faded with the asphalt, dingy yellow on charcoal gray, the plexiglass windows around the front doors scratched and water damaged and a bit warped, but the interior was brightly lit, the grounds were clean, and most importantly, there was a pay phone up against the left corner of the building.

Leorio felt like leaping from the bike in celebration, but figured that was ill-advised and would probably just get him hurt, so he stood on the pedals instead and coasted into the parking lot in a breezy sweep, making a beeline for the phone.  Gon and Killua followed a bit more sedately; Gon had unwound the rope from the frame of his bike so Killua could trail behind him on the skateboard, presumably with more caution after the spill they took a few days before.  Leorio felt slightly better about Killua traveling this way, since it put less stress on his ankle if he wasn’t constantly propelling the skateboard, but kept watching him closely in case he was trying to hide a limp.

He propped the bike up next to the phone, pulled his briefcase out of the basket, and picked up the receiver just to see if it was, in fact, functional.  The sound of the dial tone over the line was never so pleasant, and Leorio pumped a fist in victory.

Now he just needed some change.

The two boys dropped their respective modes of transportation next to Leorio’s bike and ran ahead to push through the glass doors before he had the chance to say anything.  He followed with a bit of a frown, wrinkling his nose when the opening doors made a strange metallic chime echo around the store, but Gon and Killua were nowhere in sight.  The aisle in front of him led directly to the service counter, though, so he made for the stark gray cash register next to the display of multicolored cigarette lighters, mouth open in preparation the moment the attendant came into sight.

What actually came into sight, though, was a two-foot-high house of cards, carefully built atop the glass counter covering the rolls of lottery scratch tickets.  Leorio stopped in his tracks, not quite sure what to do in the face of this unexpected discovery, and looked around from side to side in confusion.

He didn’t see anyone, including either of the boys, so at length he just muttered into the uncomfortable silence, “Hello?”

There was a creak, somewhere directly in front of him, followed by the slightest movement near the lower corner of the house of cards.  Slowly, a head of slicked-back red hair appeared, and a pair of narrow cat eyes, accompanied by a low hum of overly-curious interest that made something unpleasant prickle on the back of Leorio’s neck.

“A customer,” the person behind the cards murmured in a voice that was hard to pin down, in a similar way to Kurapika’s and yet at the same time vastly different—throaty with a vicious kind of amusement.  “What can I do for you?”

Words had flown directly out of Leorio’s head and he had to scramble for a moment to tug them back, forcefully redirecting his thoughts towards his goal.  “Actually, I need change for the pay phone.  Are you able to do cash back on purchases?”

The attendant hummed again, less curious and more thoughtful this time, then suddenly the house of cards collapsed, almost perfectly into its own footprint, except for one ace of diamonds that fluttered down to the floor near Leorio’s foot.  He bent to pick it up automatically, dropping it onto the counter with the others, and the attendant's eyes widened with an odd interest.

In full view, they were dressed in a short-sleeved button down, presumably the store’s uniform, over a pink turtleneck, with a name badge that read _Hisoka_ in blocky capitals surrounded by card suits.  Their mouth made Leorio think of a frog, the way it was pursed in a flat protruding line, their chin propped on one hand.  They plucked the ace off the top of the pile with the other, holding it up between two fingers idly.  “I can do cash back in increments of five dollars, on a minimum purchase of twenty dollars.”

“Twenty, huh,” Leorio echoed, trying to recall the last time he checked his account balance.  What was he going to spend twenty dollars on?

A pair of shoes squeaked behind him, and he turned to see Gon and Killua reappear, arms loaded up with magazines, candy, soda and junk food, both of their eyes equally round and practically sparkling with good faith

“No,” Leorio said, emphatically, tucking his briefcase under one arm so he could take both of them by the shoulders and march them back to the sweets aisle.  “We’re going to get proper groceries.  Put that stuff back.”

Leorio stalked back to the entrance to the tune of their grumbles and protests and grabbed up a shopping basket, giving the store a glance over to get his bearings.  At the very least, he wanted to make up for some of the food the three of them had consumed from Kurapika’s stores, which he suspected were probably limited, even with weekly deliveries.  The grocery didn’t have a very large selection of fresh food, but he was able to get a small bag of potatoes and another of apples, two cans of tuna and two boxes of macaroni, a handful of ramen packets, some frozen breakfast sausage, a package of instant pancake mix, a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a package of hot dogs.  He stopped by the dairy case, thinking that Kurapika had mentioned being out of half-and-half, but the shelves were completely empty.  Leorio puzzled over this, rounding the end of the aisle and returning to heft his basket onto the counter.  The attendant, Hisoka, was leaning over the glass and shuffling their cards, bridging the deck with precision.

“Are you totally out of milk?”

“It goes fast around here.”  Hisoka tapped the deck together and set it aside, pulling Leorio’s basket over to scan the contents.  “Anything else?”

Leorio looked behind himself on instinct, and sure enough, Gon and Killua were standing side by side, Gon with a bag of gummi worms and Killua with a box of chocolate balls.  He sighed, and relented.  “Alright.  Give them here.”

He wondered, while Hisoka rang up the candy so Leorio could pass it back to the boys, how many of their previous selections had ended up in their pockets, and wasn’t sure how he felt about that.  He supposed that shoplifting wasn’t the worst thing in the world, if it meant they got to eat (although he suspected they weren’t _just_ stealing food), but he’d much prefer to think that they would stay with Kurapika after he left, even once Killua’s ankle was healed.

But could Kurapika afford to take care of them?  Leorio wasn’t sure, and it was getting harder to convince himself that it wasn’t his problem to worry about—that his real problems were waiting for him at home.

Gon and Killua disappeared back out through the glass doors as soon as the candy was in their hands, and Leorio let out a breath through his nose.  The sound of plastic bags rustling returned his attention to the counter, and the total on the register.

“$21.57,” Hisoka read off.  Leorio dug his wallet out of his pocket—now that he had it back—and ran his debit card, praying that he wasn’t unexpectedly overdrawn, and wasn’t about to overdraw himself.  Who knew what tragedies could have befallen his bank account over the last couple of days while he was unable to impulsively check it?

Hisoka counted back the five dollars in quarters with the leisure of a cat sunning itself.  “So what brings you all the way out here,” they asked, checking the name on the receipt they ripped off the register.  “Leorio, is it?”

“I was on a bender with some friends and they ditched me in the RV park.  Just need to call to get a ride home.”

“Oh,” Hisoka said with far too much interest.  “That’s a shame.  This is such a _difficult_ area to call out from.”

“I’ve gathered that.”  Leorio wasn’t sure he liked the emphasis that Hisoka put on certain words, or how their eyes bored through him like they could see everything that had happened in the last three days.  He felt, suddenly, that he didn’t really want this person to know about his connection to Kurapika, and thought back through their interactions to make sure he hadn’t mentioned his name.  “It was hard enough just getting out here to the pay phone to begin with.”

“Is that so.”  It was less of a question than a statement from Hisoka’s mouth, like they weren’t a bit surprised that Leorio’s efforts had been so coincidentally thwarted.  “Five dollars in quarters, as requested.”  They pushed the stacks of coins across the counter, frog mouth twisting up into a smile that made Leorio’s skin crawl.  “Good luck.”

Leorio stuttered over a thanks, scooped the change into his pocket and grabbed the two bags off the counter, eager to get out the door and away from Hisoka’s unnerving stare.  He didn’t quite feel okay again until he was in the corner by the pay phone, away from the windows.  He set the bags down on the sidewalk, noting Gon and Killua’s voices emanating from somewhere around the side of the building, and dug through his briefcase for his cell phone.

He had a brainstorm at that point, a stroke of brilliance perhaps, and tugged one of the billing statements out of the lid pocket, found a pen, and flipped it over to jot down the numbers he needed on the back.  He could only imagine the worst happening, at the most inopportune moment, and having the phone die while he was in the midst of trying to catch someone on the line.  Considering his luck in this regard over the last couple of days, he wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.

Fortunately the phone sprang to life when he turned it on, although the low battery warning flashed immediately and he muttered, “I know, I know,” at the screen while opening his contacts.  He scrolled through the list quickly, scribbling down his best bets as well as the taxi service he kept handy for nights out.  He didn’t think they’d send someone all the way out here, and there was no way in hell he could pay that kind of fare, but… maybe it would have to be a last resort.

The screen flashed and began shutting down just as he started taking down the last number, and he wrote out the last few digits from memory.  Leorio stowed the phone back in his briefcase; it was useless now, but at least he had what he needed the most off of it.

On reflection, it was a little strange that there were no missed calls or texts waiting after it had been shut off for three days, but he reasoned that the reception was poor enough they just didn’t come through properly.  Satisfied, he wedged the receiver between his ear and shoulder, fed some quarters into the pay slot, and started working his way down the list.

The first number rang five times and then randomly dropped, then rang four times and spat back a message about the customer being out of the service area.  The second number went directly to Hanzo’s voicemail, and it was too late to hang up and get his quarters back so Leorio left a lengthy and irritated message about listening to people when they spoke (Hanzo was the one who replied to his text message, that first day.)

The third one was an actual landline, which gave Leorio some measure of hope, although it required Pockle being present in his shop and able to hear the phone ringing over the outrageously loud music he played while he was welding.  Leorio lost count of how many times the line rang after the tenth because the phone’s innards made that grinding and clinking sound that meant his change had been eaten and wouldn’t be refunded if he hung up.  He couldn’t remember if the shop phone had a voice mail system, or if it would even be worthwhile to leave a message, so Leorio waited, chewing on his lip, fingers closing around the remaining change in his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Oh thank god, Pockle.”

“Leorio?”  Something rustled over the line, whirring in the background that came to a slow halt.  “Sorry.  Wow this connection is terrible.  Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s Leorio.  Listen, I’m still stuck here in this place—wherever it was we came out to on Friday night and I need someone to come pick me up.  My phone is dead and I’m at the gas station here on highway 404.”

“Woah, woah.  Okay, not that I remember much about Friday night, but—”

The line cut to fuzz and Leorio panicked.  “Hello?  Hello, can you still hear me?  Pockle?”

“—could have been worse.  Where did you say you were?”

Leorio considered asking Pockle to repeat himself, then reconsidered, because with such a lousy connection he didn’t really have the time.  “Highway 404.  The gas station here… I don’t know, the sign is just the number 44, it’s at the intersection with a private drive that leads to a place called Shipwreck Island RV Park.”

“Okay, I’m trying to look it up.  Shipwreck Island?”

“Yeah.”

“Not getting anything.  Highway 404… that’s off the interstate to the west, right?”

“Yes, yes that’s the one.  It should be south of the freeway.”

Pockle made some dubious noises and the line crackled again, and Leorio almost wished he was religious enough to pray to something, or someone.  “I don’t see anything south of the freeway, the highway ends about ten miles in.”

Leorio opened his mouth, closed it, twisted around until he could see the signs around the intersection--there weren’t the usual ones, green and white with mileage and arrows, but there was a stake with the highway marker right there, in black and white.  “Well this is definitely 404.  Maybe it’s just not on the map?  If you drive out here you’ll see it.”

“Well, that’s the unfortunate thing.  My car is in the shop and I won’t get it back until Thursday.  I can make some calls and see if anyone else has the time and gas to make the trip, otherwise—”

The line cut again and Leorio slammed a fist on top of the phone box, half in frustration and half in the hopes that it would jar the device back into life.

“—that long already.  Are you okay?  Do you think you can hang tight until Friday?”

Leorio ground his teeth together, thought about Kurapika momentarily and then thought about his apartment, his bills, his job, the work he was already losing this week and how much it would cost him in the long run.  “If I have to, but I really need to get back into town.”

“I know.  I’ll do what I can.  Is there a number I can reach you at?”

“This is a pay phone.”  Leorio ran his finger over the surface, but the window for the call-in number just showed a series of fours.  “I don’t know what the number is though.  If a car comes through I might try to hitch a ride.”

“Okay.  If you haven’t turned up and I haven’t heard from you by Friday I’ll drive out.  Take ca—”

The line went to static again, and then a dial tone, and Leorio practically flung the receiver back into the cradle.

He could have stuck his head in the door and asked Hisoka for the number to the pay phone, he supposed.  He could have dug the paper out of his breast pocket and given Pockle Kurapika’s number—but maybe that was bad form.

He could have asked for some kind of explanation for why he was out here to begin with, but that would have taken up precious time.  Everything boiled down to a single point, and restraining his temper was starting to get the better of him.

_Friday_.  Leorio turned in place and sat on the curb next to his briefcase, pushing both hands up under his glasses to rub his eyes.  Could he stand to wait here that long?  If he had to—he could get food from the store, maybe borrow things from the magazine racks.  Try to entertain himself until he heard a car coming.  It could happen anytime, in fact.  His mind naturally drifted to how much more comfortable it would be to sleep on the lawn in front of the caravan, and have fresh coffee in the mornings, company, kids to look after and a cute blond to talk to.

Feet shuffled on concrete near his right knee and Leorio pulled his hands down to see Gon peering at him around the edge of the phone stall.  “Did you get through to someone?”

“Yeah.”  Leorio couldn’t make his voice sound very enthusiastic about it.  “He said he’ll see if anyone is available to come get me, but if not he’ll drive out himself on Friday.”

“That’s great!”  Gon seemed to take the enthusiasm that Leorio couldn’t muster and triple it, bouncing on his heels, fists in the air at his side—one of them holding his half-eaten bag of gummi worms.  “Then we can all go back to the caravan and wait.”

“I’m going to stay here.”

Gon’s arms fell to his sides, wide puppy eyes drooping slightly.  “But—”

“If a car comes by I might be able to hitch a ride.  And if someone comes looking for me they’ll stop here first.”  Leorio tried to arrange his legs into some configuration that was comfortable, not easy when he was sitting on a five-inch curb and he was a ridiculous gangling giant, but if he was going to stay here for some indefinite amount of time it was worth at least trying.

Gon seemed caught somewhere in the range of emotions between stubbornness and worry, checking the sun in the sky like he could tell the time by its position—and somehow Leorio wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.  “Then… then we’ll wait here with you for a while before we all go back, then we can keep an eye out for your friend on Friday, together.”

“That’s not necessary.  I’ll just wait here, someone’s bound to come this way sometime today.”  Leorio was getting a little irritated by Gon’s insistence, in fact—hadn’t the entire plan been to get him here so he could get a ride home?

Killua came around the corner at that point, like he’d sensed the opportunity to back Gon up and couldn’t resist participating.  “If Gon says we should all go back, then we probably should.”

Leorio narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Killua’s gait as he orbited Gon and stepped off the curb onto the concrete— _there_.  Just the slightest hitch.  Leorio pointed at Killua’s ankle in accusation.  “That was a limp!”

“It was not!”

“That was definitely a limp.  I’m a doctor and I know what a limp looks like.”

“You’re not a doctor, you’re a CNA!”

“Killua,” Gon interjected, turning to face his friend and waiting until he did the same.  “Does it hurt?”

Killua looked like he was going to insist otherwise, for several seconds, one hand on his hip, posture rigid with defiance, but staring at Gon for those seconds sucked all of the pretense out of him, and he looked to the side with a low scoff.  “It’s a little sore.”

Leorio squawked indignantly, still pointing, and Gon held up a hand, turning to face him instead.  “Leorio, what should he do?”

Righteous indignation draining away, Leorio drew his hand back and then waved it dismissively, mouth twisting into something that most definitely wasn’t a pout.  “Take it easy going back, and then stay off your feet for the rest of the night.  And ice it.  Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off.”

“Okay, Killua?”

Killua wasn’t looking at either of them, with determination.  “Yeah.”

Leorio grumbled to himself about how easily he was dragged into Gon’s pace, but at least Killua agreed to take care of himself and wouldn’t be able to get away with pretending he was fine.  He hoped, for a few brief shining seconds, that their conversation was over, but Gon didn’t move, and presently took a few steps closer, until he was practically looming over Leorio.

Leorio tried to glare back, and felt like a petulant child.  “What.”

“If you don’t come back with us now, then promise me you’ll come back at sunset.”  Gon folded his arms, eyebrows drawn in that stern, heavy way Leorio associated with him standing with his fists at his sides and insisting that Killua couldn’t return to his family.

There were times when Leorio felt impressed or taken aback by that expression, but this was not one of them.  “I’m going to wait here until I get a ride.”

“Kurapika will be upset if you don’t come back.”

Leorio opened his mouth once, expression twisting comically along with something in his gut and then grit his teeth firmly together before he said something embarrassing, before he thought much longer about Kurapika standing alone on his front lawn watching them go.  “Don’t you use that against me, Gon, that’s not fair.”

“Then listen to me, Leorio!  Don’t just ignore me because you think I’m a dumb kid.”  Gon was starting to look legitimately angry at this point, fists hitching up at his sides.  “I’m telling you that you shouldn’t be out here after dark, okay!”

“And _I’m_ telling _you_ that I’m an adult and I know how to take care of myself!”  Leorio jerked to his feet in one rapid motion, like he couldn’t stand to be looked down on for another moment, like he needed to prove what he was saying by displaying the vast difference in height between himself and Gon.  “You’re twelve years old.  You can’t even begin to understand the number of things in my life that are poised to go terribly wrong in the next few days if I don’t get back home and back to my life so I can take care of them.  I can’t keep playing around out here with you guys!”

There was a terrible moment in there just before Leorio got to the end of his tirade where Gon looked like he’d been slapped.  Just a moment of shock and hurt in his wide brown eyes, and then he scowled, shoulders drawn up and eyebrows drawn together until he’d reached a level of stubborn willfulness equal to Leorio’s.

“This isn’t a game!” Gon said, biting out each word like ripping into leather.  “I hope you don’t figure that out the hard way, Leorio.”

Gon snatched up the two grocery bags and handed one to Killua as he passed, rounding the corner to grab his bike.  Killua trailed after him reluctantly, looking over his shoulder at Leorio several times until he finally grabbed on to the handle trailing after Gon’s bike and stepped onto his skateboard.

Leorio watched them go with his hands in his pockets, figures growing steadily smaller until they dropped down behind a rise in the topography and out of sight.

He started to feel bad about it maybe an hour later, which was all it really took for him to start to feel uncomfortable sitting on concrete, regardless of the position.  The whole thing become boring phenomenally fast—he had nothing to entertain himself with, his phone was dead, and he wasn’t desperate enough yet to go back into the store and face down that creepy attendant so he could get a magazine or maybe a book of sudoku puzzles to keep himself occupied while he waited.

After about two hours he decided to eat the Twix bar in his briefcase.  The chocolate was a little melted, probably from sitting in his briefcase in the sun for three days, and the caramel was stringy and stuck to his teeth.  He hadn’t heard a single sound from the road, in any direction, and no other customers had come through on foot or by bike.  At one point he saw a family of quail scurry across the road, from one overgrown patch of brush and desert grass to the other, and that was the highlight of the afternoon for Leorio.

He didn’t want to think about things, but eventually he did, under protest.  He thought about Gon and how hurt he’d looked for that one moment, and how right he was about Leorio dismissing him and what he had to say—because he was just a kid, because he didn’t understand how important adult things were.  But Gon was a kid who’d grown up without stability, with a father figure out there somewhere who was absent most of the time and somehow Gon didn’t fault him for it.  Being essentially homeless in an oddball rural community was normal for him; having to see to his own needs and survival was normal for him.  Leorio tried to think back to when he was twelve, and whether he’d be able to do the same, if he went off on his own to live in a treehouse.

(He’d tried to run away from home once, when he was 14, but ended up at Pietro’s back door with his backpack trailing on the ground behind him and cried on his bedroom floor about how he wanted to cut his hair, about how nothing on his body felt right, and then he felt guilty because Pietro didn’t _have_ any hair, had a body that was slowly killing him.  But Pietro just sat with one arm slung around his neck until he stopped crying, kissed his cheek and told him his mom would call Leorio’s mom, that he could stay the night, that they’d have homemade pizza for dinner.)

He thought about how Killua was glued to Gon’s side and at times they were a formidable tag-team and at others it was more like Killua was lost and Gon was the only compass he had.  Leorio remembered a brief internship at a downtown urgent care clinic, a sort of offshoot of the main hospital, and one of his cohort had come up to him halfway through the day tugging on his elbow and whispering _I don’t know what to do I think someone beat this girl but I don’t know what to do about it_.  He’d followed them into the exam room to see an eleven-year-old with her hair draped half over a face that looked like she’d just climbed out of a boxing ring.   _I fell down the stairs_ , she’d said, with a disdainful stare but a quiver in her voice.

_Go tell the attending_ , Leorio had told his cohort, and agreed with whatever the girl said.  Gave her some ice, cleaned and stitched up the gash in her cheek that looked like a ring caught on the skin.  He’d asked her about school, if she played any sports, if she liked books or video games.  He’d gotten her to talk hesitantly about comics until the attending doctor came in with a social worker.

Leorio never found out what happened to her.  She probably hadn’t had an amazing best friend to kidnap her and take her away to a treehouse in the countryside where they could live in an idyllic summer, reading comics and playing card games and stealing food and sweets from the grocery store, until something happened, or someone came looking for them.

_Those two know how to take care of each other and are more capable of doing so than either of their biological parents_ , Kurapika had said.   _So what does that say about us?_

Leorio thought about Kurapika even more reluctantly than anyone or anything else.  He thought about a hand tugging on his tie, how close Kurapika’s face had been in that moment.  How he’d smelled something like cinnamon, that might have been soap or skin or something on Kurapika’s breath, close enough it was almost a puff of heat on his chin.  He wondered if he could have closed that distance, if Kurapika’s mouth would have been soft and warm, if he could have dragged his fingers through the blond hair at his temple, settled his other hand on his waist where that strip of skin was showing, pulled him closer.

It had been a long time since he wanted to kiss anyone, let alone a strange boy who lived alone in a camper, and it wasn’t fair—it really, _really_ was not fair that Leorio’s affections decided to place themselves on someone so totally incompatible with his lifestyle.  Distance things required communication at the very least, and even with the number tucked safely in his breast pocket, Leorio didn’t have much faith in the phone system out here successfully connecting him to Kurapika often enough to even maintain a casual acquaintanceship.  Even once he was home with everything dealt with and his car, coming back out here would cost him in gas, and time, and neither time nor money were things Leorio had available to spend on anyone, including himself.

Knowing that didn’t make him stop thinking about it—about soft lips and a warm body and a smell like cinnamon.  It didn’t give him the ability to erase that last image of Kurapika standing on his lawn, watching them leave, arms tucked around his body.  It didn’t make him stop thinking about Gon frowning and saying _Kurapika will be upset if you don’t come back_.

The sky grew dark while Leorio grew frustrated, too certain that this deserted gas station was his best bet at getting home, too stubborn to take up the bike propped against the wall around the corner and just pedal his way back to the park.  By the time the sun was sinking over the horizon he was angry, at everything and everyone, maybe at himself, mostly at the road and how it was quiet and empty.

By the time the orange and purple of sunset had faded and the stars began winking on overhead, he was curled over his knees, arms over his head, regretting everything.  Wondering how he’d even ended up here, in this place, in this situation, and why it was so ungodly difficult to just _leave_.

The quality of light from the plexiglass windows changed abruptly, startling him out of his reverie, and he looked up to see the fluorescent lights inside the store switching off one by one, until just a few near the front and far in the back remained on.  A few minutes later Hisoka appeared at the entrance, keys jangling in their hands, and secured the glass doors, then pulled a metal shutter down over them.  They glanced over at Leorio while fiddling with a padlock, frog-like smile spreading across their face.  “Still here, I see.”

Leorio avoided looking them directly in the face.  “I figured someone would show up.”

The padlock closed with a decisive snick.  “I hope you don’t plan on staying here all night.”

“Maybe.”

Hisoka laughed in a way that shook their whole body, in a way that made something unpleasant prickle up along Leorio’s spine.  They stepped over towards him slowly, looming above him with a cut of shadow across their face and chest, backlit by the fluorescent lights illuminating the gas pump island, and for an instant something twisted in Leorio’s gut that he thought might have been mortal terror.  He instinctively reached for something, caught the handle of his briefcase, and barring anything else he supposed it was a reasonable blunt object.

But at the end of that instant Hisoka crouched down beside him, out of the shadows, head cocked like a curious dog and a faint, amused smile that didn’t stretch out their lips into a frog mouth.  “I suppose it’s fortunate that I’m interested in just how bad things might get for you, before all this is over, _Leorio_.”  They drew out the vowels in a singsong tone, not quite mocking but definitely not benevolent—sort of eerily playful.  “So I’ll give you a ride back to your friends, if you promise to continue doing your best to stay alive and escape.  I want this reprieve to be worth the entertainment.”

Leorio’s brain caught on the words _stay alive_ and rolled over them a few times, mouth going dry.  The prickling feeling in his spine traveled down his arms into his hands, and he was pretty sure the last thing he wanted to do was get into a vehicle with this person—but it was probably his only chance of getting back to the park, at this point.  No one else was coming, and it was too dark to ride the bike.

So after a protracted pause he said, hesitantly, “Okay.”

 

 

Hisoka’s vehicle turned out to be a dark purple scooter, which Leorio spent a profoundly uncomfortable ten minutes sitting pillion on, knees drawn up awkwardly, briefcase wedged between them and his chest, hands fisted around the grab bar, doing all he could to avoid touching Hisoka in any way, which was nearly impossible.  He was pretty sure he could hear them chuckling every time he fidgeted, which just made it worse.

He hadn’t noticed before how few lights were on around the RV park until Hisoka swung the scooter into the dirt drive, slowing to a putter as they navigated the ruts and turned onto the loop that would take them to Kurapika’s lot.  He didn’t ask how Hisoka knew where they were going--he was pretty sure Hisoka knew everything, everything about him and his situation and this place, everything that Leorio didn’t know, and that was why they kept laughing.

The Airstream was dimly lit on the inside but the door was hanging open, and the light over the awning was lit.  Leorio didn’t notice any movement from a distance but as they approached he saw that Kurapika was silhouetted in the doorway, sitting on the bottom step.  He stood when the scooter came to a halt alongside the gravel, and Leorio thought he saw a cell phone in one hand, but it disappeared quickly into a pocket.

Leorio scrambled awkwardly off of the scooter, feet kicking up gravel in his very obvious effort to get away.  He almost expected Hisoka to follow him, like accepting the ride and whatever strange deal Hisoka offered meant they would shadow everything he did for the remainder of his time here.  But Hisoka was frowning down at their toe, where it was touching the dirt just shy of where the gravel ended, and almost gingerly drew their foot back.

Kurapika grabbed him by the wrist and the touch felt electric—Leorio didn’t even realize he’d gotten that close.  He was wearing a black suit—perfectly tailored and form-fitting, unbuttoned white shirt peeking out around the lapels and framing his collarbones well enough that Leorio didn’t feel offended that he wasn’t wearing a tie with it.  Kurapika’s eyes were almost black in the dim light, looking Leorio over like they expected to see something terribly wrong, shoulders sagging in relief when he turned out to be perfectly fine.

“You idiot,” Kurapika said under his breath, a low whisper that he clearly didn’t want Hisoka to hear, but his tone was almost painfully fond.

Hisoka made a humming sound that was far too interested, whether they heard the whisper or not, and Kurapika’s head whipped around, mouth tugging into a frown, and something snapped in the air between them.  His hand slipped down until it circled Leorio’s, thumb pressing into his palm and fingers against his knuckles, and Leorio thought the touch might burn right through his skin.

Kurapika looked down at where Hisoka’s foot was, then back up, and smirked.  Hisoka’s expression soured.

“Best not to get too attached, don’t you think?” Hisoka said lightly, like they were commenting on the weather.

“I hardly think that’s your business.”

“Maybe not _mine_.”  Hisoka leaned their head back, like they were observing the stars and gleaning some information from their position in the sky—kind of in the same way Gon had checked the sun for the time, earlier.  “It’s nearly midnight.  Don’t be late.”

Kurapika didn’t respond and Hisoka didn’t elaborate, just lifted their foot and puttered away, the lights from the scooter slowly circling around the drive and off to the further side of the park.  Kurapika watched them until they were a far enough distance away that he was satisfied, then tugged on Leorio’s hand.  “Are you okay?  Did he say anything to you?”

“He said a lot of things that didn’t make any sense but were vaguely threatening.  And laughed at me.”  Leorio felt increasingly indignant about it and even more incompetent by contrast, neither of which were improving his mood after the continued disappointments of the entire afternoon.  He was exhausted down to his bones, not a physical kind of exhaustion but an emotional one, the kind that drew his nerves taut and left him feeling raw and vulnerable.  “What’s going on here?”

Kurapika’s expression softened into something that might have been pity, or maybe that was just how Leorio interpreted it, but it raked against those raw edges like claws.  “I’m sorry.  I can’t explain right now.”

It took Leorio an extra beat of time to realize that Kurapika had released his hand and was walking back to the caravan, because the touch still lingered on his skin and he might have enjoyed it if he wasn’t so on edge.  He might have raised his voice, too, if he hadn’t glanced to the side and seen that Gon and Killua were sound asleep in their sleeping bag nest.  “Kurapika,” he said, following him to the door with a few quick strides, and then lower, more firm.  “ _Kurapika_.  He offered me a ride home in exchange for promising to _do my best to stay alive and escape_.  What the hell does that mean?”

Kurapika pushed the door closed and turned the key that was already sitting in the lock, like he’d been prepared to do so and was just waiting for Leorio to return.  He pocketed the key without responding, and Leorio felt his shoulders trembling.

His voice came out even lower, harsher.  “ _Kurapika_.”

“You’re safe here,” Kurapika said, firmly, expression impassive as he stared up at Leorio, then cut his gaze meaningfully over to the side, to where Hisoka had stopped, and it occurred to Leorio why it felt relevant to him before.  That was where Gon had marked a hole, dropped something into it, drawn a crude circle in the dirt around the perimeter of the lot.  “I really am sorry, but I have to go.  Please get some rest.”

“Go?”  Leorio took another step in the gravel when Kurapika moved again, striding purposefully away.  “Go where?”

“Work.”

“At midnight?”

“Yes.”  Kurapika stuffed his hands in his pockets and threw a soft smile over his shoulder, hitting Leorio square in the chest, a bullet making a critical hit.  “Go to sleep, Leorio.”

He turned on the road and disappeared around the front of the caravan.  Leorio took a step after him but was distracted, suddenly, by the sound of wings flapping overhead, like an owl or some other night bird had passed over or taken off from the trailer’s roof.  It startled him enough that he hesitated for a few seconds, looking up for some sign of movement or a shadow to match to the sound, then mentally dismissed the bird as unimportant and ran the rest of the way to the edge of the lot.

Kurapika’s name was in his throat, his tongue curled around the first syllable, but the drive was empty.  He looked around, bewildered, then stepped cautiously around the hitch—nervous now about leaving the circumference that Gon had drawn.  Logically he didn’t see how it made him any safer than anywhere else, but Hisoka had seemed put off by it and at this point in the dark and the deep uncertainty he was wallowing in, that was more than enough to convince Leorio.  But there was no Kurapika visible from the far side of the caravan, either.  It was dark, but that blond head of hair should still be obvious, when he’d only been walking for a few seconds.

Leorio returned to the lawn with one hand rubbing his chin, set his briefcase down next to the rolled up sleeping bag resting on the picnic table bench, stacked alongside the red pillow and the folded t-shirt and flannel pants from the free bins.

_No one here expected you to leave today_ , a voice in the back of his head commented helpfully.

Preparing for bed felt mechanical, like his thoughts had disconnected themselves from his body for a while and left it to fend for itself, so it wandered around and changed and brushed his teeth and climbed into the sleeping bag on its own.  He didn’t quite come back until he rolled to the side and noticed that the pillow had that same faint cinnamon smell he noticed on Kurapika that morning, and he wondered if maybe that was how the caravan smelled, inside.

It was pleasant.

Something shuffled and grumbled from the preteen boy nest, and Leorio twisted his head around to see Killua peering at him over his pillow, eyes heavy with sleep, hair flattened awkwardly on one side.  He blinked a few times then said in a rough voice, “You made it, huh.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Leorio replied.

“Good.”  Killua thumped at his pillow, twisting around properly onto his stomach and pushing one of Gon’s limbs off of him.  “You better apologize to Gon.  You hurt his feelings.”

Leorio hummed, remembering.  “You’re right.  I’ll do that in the morning.”

Killua’s grunt of acknowledgment was interrupted by a huge yawn, and he flopped back into place on his pillow and promptly fell asleep.  Leorio envied him.

Time passed, hours probably, while Leorio listened to the faint rustle of grass and low snores and the occasional chirp of crickets, caught in the low thrum of his own thoughts.  Kurapika didn’t return.  Sometime in the wee hours of the morning he fell into a restless sleep and dreamed that Hisoka smiled at him with two neat rows of razor sharp teeth.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Leorio looked up, with what must have been a flabbergasted expression because Killua rolled his eyes and elaborated. “Look, I get that our situations aren’t exactly the same, since for whatever reason being here with Gon means I have some level of protection that you don’t. But I’m concerned about what happens to you, because if something goes wrong, whatever happens to you could happen to me, too. It’s self-interest, old man.” He turned up his nose slightly, chin in his hand, like he thought he could brush off his own concern with an aloof front._
> 
> In which ground rules are established, Leorio makes breakfast, and Gon proves unable to read the mood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another delay, which may be the norm for another few chapters because grad school and also because this weird plotty buildup halfway-point is always the hardest part for me to write. (Also also because I joined the hxh big bang on tumblr which you should check out @ hxhbb.tumblr.com! Or sign up for! It's gonna be rad.)
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me through this strange fic. Friday is going to be a long day for our heroes and by the end of it shit will be very real. Look forward to it.
> 
> As always thanks to @adulter_clavis for beta reading. If you dig Soul Eater go check out her resbang fic!

> _it's empty in the valley of your heart_   
>  _the sun it rises slowly as you walk_   
>  _away from all the fears and all the faults you've left behind_

 

Gon woke up with Killua’s fist buried in his cheek, which wasn’t unusual—sometimes it was a fist, sometimes it was a foot, sometimes Killua’s hair was in his mouth and sometimes Gon was face-down and drooling on his stomach or the small of his back.  It was par for the course; they were both sprawling sleepers and far too used to sharing a small space and spending the course of the night unconsciously trying to shove each other out of it.

Of course, there were also mornings when he woke up to find Killua clinging to him like a child with a security blanket, but that was different.

What _was_ unusual was opening his eyes to see heavy gray light that wasn’t even dawn looming around the edges of the awning, far too early for him to wake on his own without the excuse of a full bladder or some invasive noise.  Or _actually_ being punched in the face, if Killua was flailing around too much.

His thoughts didn’t progress very far before he heard footsteps crunching through the gravel and sat up, groggy, picking the sleep from the corners of his eyes.  Kurapika was walking slow, hands in his pockets, suit jacket slung through the crook of his elbow, shoulders slumped.  He looked weary and frail, eyes sunken like he’d been awake for several nights in a row and not just one.  Gon frowned, twisting around until he could climb up on his knees.

Kurapika only seemed to notice him then, pausing a few steps from the caravan door and looking over without expression.  “Gon.  It’s still early, go back to sleep.”

“Was it that bad,” he asked, voice pitched low so he didn’t wake anyone else.  “Did the Hunt start?”

Kurapika seemed to have trouble focusing on him, eyes blinking slowly and then shifting slightly, staring past him to where Leorio was sleeping near the picnic table.  “Not until the solstice.  The logistics are a nightmare, though.  I’ll have to go back tomorrow night.  Maybe the next, too.”  He pulled the hand that wasn’t supporting his jacket out of his pocket and rubbed it over his face and through his hair, pushing his bangs back and hovering there like he’d forgotten what he was doing.  Even from a short distance, Gon could see the tremble in his limbs.

Killua stirred next to him, pushing up on his elbow and mumbling something nonsensical, eyes open barely a slit and peering around like he intended to fight whatever had woken him up.  Gon glanced over at him, then up at Kurapika, and made a decision, holding up one hand.  “Come here.”

Kurapika was still staring at Leorio’s back with a kind of exhausted longing, but slowly dropped his arm and stepped towards Gon almost automatically, like he was on autopilot and responding to whatever came easiest.  Killua was pliant enough in his half-asleep state to follow instructions, too, when Gon implored him to scoot over, then tugged the blankets aside so he could grab Kurapika’s hand and pull him down between them.

Kurapika made a few weak protests en route to the ground, but once he was lying properly in the nest of sleeping bags he exhaled with his entire body and closed his eyes.  Gon thought he might have fallen asleep instantly, but a few seconds later he murmured, “Have to do something for breakfast.”

“Later,” Gon assured him, and tugged the suit jacket free so he could set it aside where it wouldn’t get wrinkled.  Killua was already dragging the blankets back up, eyes fully closed and nearly asleep himself.  Gon pulled up his own side and wriggled back down into place, a much smaller space with three people in the nest instead of two, but Kurapika wasn’t that much bigger than either of them.

He didn’t remember falling asleep, just waking up to the sound of cards shuffling and a bird twittering somewhere nearby, feet warm from the sunlight angled under the awning.  Kurapika was still sound asleep, curled on his side with his hands tucked under his face, so Gon slipped out of the nest without disturbing him.  Killua was sitting at the far side of the picnic table, Pokemon cards spread out on the tablecloth, open box of maple cookies at his elbow.

“Are you here for my Vaporeon?” Killua asked seriously, plucking cards from the deck in his hand one by one and frowning at them in turn.

“I was considering offering you an Eevee.”

“I don’t believe you would give up one of your Eevees.”

“You believed I would give up Articuno.”

“I wouldn’t say I _believed_ that, I just thought it was worth a suggestion.”

A sleeping bag rustled close behind him, and Gon twisted his head around and leaned back, holding on to the edge of the table for support.  “Good morning!”

Leorio flopped onto his back and rubbed both hands over his face, then peered underneath them, squinting at Gon through his lack of glasses.  “What time is it?”

“About ten,” Killua said, and stuffed a maple cookie into his mouth.

Leorio grumbled something to himself and reached over to dig through the clothes sitting next to his briefcase.  Gon stopped paying attention to him and leaned back over the table, swiping two cookies out of Killua’s box and trying to get a good look at the deck in his hands.  “I’ve given this a lot of consideration and I’m gonna offer you my Jolteon.  Even one for one trade.”

“Not sure I would call that _even_.”

“It’s one Eevee-based evolution for another!  How is it _not_ even?”

“Because if I replace a water type with a lightning type in my deck the entire balance of elemental damage effects changes.”

Gon frowned, one cookie hanging from his mouth for a long moment before he pulled it out and said, “I’m starting to think you just really don’t want me to have your Vaporeon.”

Killua looked back at him seriously, mouth pursed, and then let out a sigh.  “Gon, if you trade me your Jolteon then you still won’t have the full set of Eeveelutions, which I thought was the whole point of this trade.  I’m willing to make it but if you’re going to have that kind of advantage then I want to get something good out of it.”

“Oh.”  Gon sat back on his heels, considering, and shoved the cookie back into his mouth.  “Right.  I forgot.”

“Dummy.” Killua’s voice was warm with affection.

Leorio was sitting up at that point, glasses perched on his nose, yawning hugely and scratching at the stubble building up on his jaw.  “I don’t have any idea what you two are talking about, but why are you eating cookies for breakfast?”

Gon glanced over his shoulder and Leorio followed the look, over to the nest where a blond head of hair was peeking out from under the blankets.  Leorio blinked a few times, bleary expression tugging his mouth down like he was trying to remember something complicated, then his face turned sour and he started climbing to his feet.

“Kurapika!”

Gon leapt up, scrambling to stand in front of Leorio with both his arms spread out to block.  “Don’t.  Let him sleep.”

Leorio’s face contorted through a comical progression of emotions beginning with anger and ending with frustrated resignation, and more than once Gon thought he might be shoved out of the way so Leorio could continue storming over to drag Kurapika out of bed and yell about whatever was making him angry.

Ultimately, though, he turned and stalked over to the picnic table and sat on the bench with a rather juvenile huff, grudgingly accepting a maple cookie when Killua offered up the box.  By the time he crunched his way through it and Gon returned to his seat on the bench, satisfied that Kurapika would not be disturbed, his mood seemed to have evened out, and he turned to Gon with a serious but pretty neutral expression.  “I owe you an apology for yesterday.”

“Huh,” Gon said, distracted by reading the attack descriptions on a Beedrill card.  Then, “Oh,” with a little bit of a twist in the pit of his stomach.  Gon didn’t hold on to hurt feelings for very long, but he did feel inadequacy sharply whenever he recognized it in himself, or when it was pointed out to him directly or indirectly.  Being looked down on because he was a kid was nothing new, but it _was_ new coming from Leorio, and he figured that was why it hurt.  Even so, he was prepared to brush it off, and opened his mouth to do so, but Leorio waved his hand to stop him.

“It was wrong for me to say those things.  I was being stubborn and self-important when you were just trying to help.  I’m sorry for not listening to you.”

Gon’s mouth hung open for a long moment, considering Leorio and his sincerity and rapidly patching up his feelings and opinions about this man until they were all fixed together so seamlessly it was like they’d never broken at all.  He grinned brightly, the entire event already forgotten and shoved aside into the less important archives of his memory.  “I forgive you.”

Leorio seemed surprised by that, and blinked several times, then grinned in return.  Gon made a pleased sound through his teeth, and Killua scoffed lightly somewhere behind his fan of cards.

“How did you get back last night, anyway?” Gon asked, and tugged the box of cookies closer to their side of the table, outside of Killua’s notice.

“That clerk from the store drove me.”  Leorio looked more than a little creeped out by this, plucking another cookie out of the box and twisting it around between his fingers.

“Hisoka did?”

“He said he was making me some kind of messed up deal.  That he’d bring me back here if I did my best to stay alive and escape.”  He crunched into the cookie like it had offended him, glaring off to the side.  “Then he said some weird shit to Kurapika about not getting attached and Kurapika took off for _work_ —whatever that is out here in the middle of nowhere—without explaining anything.”

Gon hummed, partially in understanding and partially in concern that Leorio’s next target was going to be him.

He was right, of course, and Leorio pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked at him sternly.  “What did he mean?  What’s going on?”

Gon chuckled nervously, scratching at his cheek with one finger.  “I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you.”

“What do you mean _allowed_?”

“There are rules.”  Gon turned sideways on the bench so he could address Leorio directly, ankles crossed in front of him.  “I don’t even know all of them, but I know the ones that apply to me.  There are probably a lot more that Kurapika has to follow, and the consequences are worse for him, so you shouldn’t try and make him tell you anything if he doesn’t want to.”

Leorio’s eyes narrowed as Gon spoke, less in suspicion and more in disbelief, and he seemed to have forgotten the half-eaten cookie in the hand that he now used to gesture emphatically to the side, to the netherspace he’d been glaring at earlier.  “Rules?  Rules for what?  What kind of place is this?”

Gon twisted his mouth up, trying to come up with a response that was honest without breaching the limitations he was under.  “It’s special.”

Leorio stared at him open-mouthed for a few seconds, deadpan.  “No kidding.”

“When I brought Killua here, I told him that strange things might happen, and that he wouldn’t always understand, and that I might ask him to do things that didn’t make sense.  Killua decided to trust me.”

“So I should just take your word at that?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not fair, Gon,” Killua said, interjecting into the conversation for the first time.  He was gathering up the cards into a pile, arranging them carefully one by one.  “We were friends before we came here.  I trusted you before you even suggested coming here.  So when you said that to me, of course I agreed.  But Leorio came here by himself, and he’s only known us for a few days.  You can’t just expect him to follow after you without knowing what’s happening to him.”

Gon felt a pang of guilt, thinking about the cupcakes and how he’d nearly destroyed that trust that he’d asked for, that Killua had given him so willingly, and continued to give him regardless of his mistake.  Leorio looked blindsided, staring at Killua like he’d never expected the pale-haired boy to take his side, especially not against Gon.

“Thanks,” Leorio said, slowly.  “That’s—that’s exactly my point.”

“No problem.”

“I don’t know what more I can do, though,” Gon said, picking at the laces on his shoes, unpleasant curls of tension rolling around in his stomach.  “Can you understand that if I put myself at risk then I also put Killua at risk?”

Leorio sighed.  “Yeah, I get that.”  He scratched one hand back through his short-cropped hair, grumbling.  “But I don’t get why I’m not allowed to know anything.”

“It’s not that you’re not allowed to know.  It’s that helping you creates debt.”  Gon held up one finger to demonstrate.  “That’s why I made you a deal when you helped us out on the road and I asked you to help me get our stuff from the treehouse.  You did that,” he held up his other hand, with his other finger raised, “and I helped you find a bike and get to the crossroads.  So we’re even, and neither of us are indebted.”

“But that’s—”

“It’s a small thing, but even small things add up over time.  Hisoka made you a deal to bring you home to avoid doing you a favor, too.  And the bigger the debt, the tighter you’re bound to that person until the debt is paid.  That’s why we went fishing and me and Killua go out for berries and herbs, and you sent the food back from the store, so we’re not indebted to Kurapika.  That’s why we’re staying on the lawn and not inside the caravan.  That’s how things work here.”

Leorio seemed to be considering that, expression flat, then hummed to himself like he’d caught something valuable.  “So if we made a deal, could you answer my questions then?”

Gon’s eyes widened, and he looked across the table at Killua briefly before returning his attention to Leorio.  “I think I could.  But it would have to be more specific than that.  And it would have to be an even trade.”

“What would you ask for as your condition?”

He considered that for a few seconds, catching a thought quickly from their conversation the day before.  “Promise that you won’t try to leave again until Friday.”  Leorio’s friend was supposed to try and come get him or get in touch with him by then, and maybe with a few days on his hands Leorio would make a few discoveries on his own.  “That’s not enough weight for big questions, though.  You’ll have to ask me ones that I can answer yes or no.”

Leorio paused for a long moment, and then sighed—it probably wasn’t as much as he wanted to get out of this, but it was the best and safest thing Gon could come up with.  “Okay, agreed.”

“It’s a deal.”  Gon leaned back on the bench, propped up on his hands, and saw Killua leaning over the table in his periphery, just as interested.  “Go ahead.”

“Is my life in danger?”

It figured that he would go for the big one first.  Gon hunched his shoulders.  “Yes.”

Leorio fell silent, mulling over whatever details he’d compiled from the last several days, putting pieces together in a slow, deliberate, methodical way.  “Am I safe if I stay in this lot, inside the circle you drew?”

Gon grinned brightly.  “Yes.”

“Is there a way out of here?”

“Yes.”  Gon bounced a little in his seat, deciding to give him a freebie.  “More than one.”

“Can you show me the way?”

“No.”

“If I made you a deal,” Leorio clarified, “then could you show me the way?”

Gon screwed up his mouth, meeting Leorio’s stare for a silent moment before cutting his eyes to the side, towards Killua.  Silently willing him to pick up on the implication.  “No.”

Leorio seemed to follow his meaning but wasn’t pleased about it, expression screwing up as he tried to compose more questions.  He probably didn’t want to waste this opportunity to get as much information as possible.  “Is—is there a time limit for me to figure it out?”

“Hmm.”  Gon considered, rocking side to side and thinking about his conversation with Kurapika earlier that morning.  “I think so.”

“How long?”

“Uh… what day is it?”

“May,” Leorio started, and then paused.  “No, wait.  June.  June 3rd.”

Gon counted in his head, then on his fingers, twice.  “Seventeen days.  And a half.  No, wait, eighteen, because you’ll have until sundown on the summer solstice.”

Killua’s voice was loud across the table.  “That wasn’t yes or no, Gon.”

He made a strangled noise, fingers still held up in front of his face, but Leorio waved a hand dismissively.

“That’s okay, I think we’re even.  Thanks.”

“That was tricky, Leorio,” Kurapika observed suddenly, hissing as he sat up in the middle of the sleeping bag nest.  “I hope the information was worth it.”

Leorio opened his mouth to say something, bristling enough that Gon wondered if they had argued the night before, but whatever he was going to vocalize died in his throat as he turned to the side.  Kurapika was still pale and haggard, as though the several hours he’d been asleep hadn’t even happened.  He crawled onto his feet unsteadily and Gon instinctively hopped up to help but Leorio got there first, in two quick strides.

Kurapika seemed surprised to have a hand on his elbow, steadying him, even more so to look up and see how Leorio’s brow was creased, deep frown tugging his entire face downward.  “What happened?”

“Just work.”  Kurapika drew away from him a little reluctantly, bent down to grab his jacket as if to prove that he didn’t need assistance.  “I’m going to go sleep in my own bed.  I’ll get some food from the kitchen first.”

Gon waylaid Leorio when Kurapika moved away from him, one hand up in what he hoped would be understood as _leave him alone for now_.  Leorio still had questions, he was full to brimming with them, but Kurapika was not prepared or able to answer them.  Not even if they were just good-hearted concern.

“Was that bad?” Gon asked, voice pitched low, standing at the base of the steps into the caravan so Kurapika could hand him a tray with food and disposable utensils piled on it.  Leorio had returned to the picnic table with a sort of dejected look, working on a fresh handful of maple cookies.  “The things I told him.”

“I don’t think so,” Kurapika said gently.  “I’ll try to be awake by dinnertime.  Knock on the back window if I’m not.”

“Okay,” Gon agreed, and stepped back as Kurapika pulled the door closed.  He frowned at the silver surface and its warped reflection of him for a long minute, willing to believe Kurapika’s words but still, somehow, deeply worried about everything else.

 

 

Leorio kept his word, because it was a fair deal and because he honestly had no idea what to do otherwise.  The day was warm and stifling and Kurapika spent most of it sleeping, only stumbling out of the caravan when sunset was approaching with a few items of food cradled in his arms, disheveled and dressed in sweatpants and looking like he hadn’t slept at all, only to slip out of the caravan in the dark minutes before midnight, back in his black suit and assuming everyone was asleep.

Leorio wasn’t.  Leorio worried.

In the remaining time before Friday he took over the task of preparing meals over the campfire with the dry goods on the picnic table or whatever he could coax out of Kurapika in the early morning before he disappeared inside to sleep.  Killua was getting around progressively better on his ankle, although Leorio made him ice it in the evenings when he noticed a limp, so he sent the two boys out to the river to get some more fish, hoping that a fresh meal with some vegetables would boost Kurapika’s health.

Gon started gathering handfuls of plants and roots from around the park and the river and spread them out on a towel to dry in the sun, filling the lot with the smell of herbs and lavender.  Leorio didn’t fully understand the purpose of this endeavor, but Gon took it very seriously and had an organized system of labeled ziploc bags that he stored everything in.  Killua ignored the activity with a sort of bored acceptance, as he seemed to do with any strange hobby of Gon’s, although he readily helped with whatever Gon wanted when asked.  Leorio got used to just watching them with mild curiosity, preparing dinner while Gon packed a pocket of gauzy fabric with a combination of aromatic herbs, then dumped a pouch of colorful rocks onto the table to sort through until he found one that met whatever unknown requirement was needed to be included in the concoction.

It started to make sense when Gon handed the stitched-up packet to Kurapika later, with instructions to put it in his pillowcase.  Leorio supposed it was some kind of homeopathic remedy meant to help him sleep, and considering the dark circles under Kurapika’s eyes Leorio was willing to accept the possibility that any medicine might improve his condition… whatever it was.

He woke up Friday morning with an unexpected and rather uncomfortable weight on his chest and squirmed a bit while only half awake until he opened his eyes to see a head of blond hair taking up most of his vision.  He grumbled Kurapika’s name without taking in much more than that, closing his eyes again in protest of waking and eventually letting out a long, aggravated sigh through his nose.  He pulled his arms out of the sleeping bag and grabbed his glasses from atop his briefcase, so at least he could see things properly when he carefully propped himself up on his elbows.

“Hey, Kurapika,” he tried again, more gently, disliking how limp the body curled next to him was, collapsed in the grass with his head on Leorio’s chest.  How his lips were dry and cracked and nearly white, and the dark stain on the cuff of his dress shirt that Leorio suspected was blood.  “Hey,” he repeated, more urgently, hands moving quickly to Kurapika’s shoulders and patting his cheek until his eyes fluttered open, vague and unseeing for a few seconds before he seemed to recognize him.

“Leorio.”

“That’s right.  Can you sit up?”  Leorio pushed himself upright, keeping his hands on Kurapika’s shoulders until he was sure he wouldn’t keel over when he let go, and grabbed his briefcase, digging through it for his watch and a penlight.  “Do you know where you are?”

“Home.”

“What day is it?”

“June,” Kurapika started, and shivered a little.  “June 5th.”

“Keep your eyes right here for me,” he instructed, touching his own nose, and flicked the light over Kurapika’s eyes, one at a time, watching his pupils fluctuate.  “Who are the two boys sleeping over there?”

“Gon and Killua.”

“Good. When was the last time you ate or drank anything?”

“When you made dinner.”

Leorio looked around, rapidly, spotting a jug on the table—one of the empty plastic milk bottles Kurapika filled up at the spigot.  There was some water still inside, only about a quarter full but better than nothing.  He dragged it down and unscrewed the cap, wishing he had a straw handy, too.  “Drink slow.”

Kurapika’s hands shook far too much, and Leorio waited for him to lower the jug before taking his pulse.  Slightly elevated.  Skin elasticity was good, though, so he probably wasn’t dehydrated enough to need a hospital.  “Do you feel dizzy or nauseous?”

“Dizzy.”  He drank another mouthful from the jug, unprompted, and Leorio felt compelled to touch his shoulder again, gently.

“Kurapika,” he said, voice low, glancing at the bloodstain on his cuff, “are you hurt anywhere?”

“No.”  Kurapika followed his glance, then looked back up at him for an instant, then off into some vague neutral space to the side.  “It’s over now, I won’t have to go back again for a while.  I just need to sleep.”

“You need to eat something first,” Leorio said, absently rubbing small circles into the shoulder under his hand.  “And drink the rest of that.  Doctor’s orders.”

Kurapika smiled, just a tiny bit, with a low but pleasant hum in his throat.  “Okay.”

Something warm fluttered in Leorio’s chest and he felt the urge to draw Kurapika close, wrap his arms around him and stroke fingers through his hair until he fell into a sleep that was actually restful and not worryingly pathological.

What he did instead was abruptly realize that he’d been sitting up in his sleeping bag examining Kurapika for the last several minutes _and that his chest was not bound_.  He was only wearing the soft gray t-shirt and flannel pants from the free boxes, which had become his go-to for sleeping and hanging around the lot, and Kurapika had fallen asleep directly _on_ his chest and sat still watching Leorio dither around doctoring him and he was definitely going to notice any second now if he hadn’t already.

Leorio scrambled out of the sleeping bag and tugged the zipper down further, guiding Kurapika around by the shoulders until he understood what was happening and toed his shoes off, laid down on Leorio’s pillow and tucked his legs inside.  Leorio drew the zipper back up, set the water jug near Kurapika’s head and absently smoothed his hair back, an instinctive move that he jerked away from after a second, like he’d been burnt or maybe overstepped his bounds.  “You can nap for a bit here and I’ll make some food.  Try to drink some more though, okay?”

“Okay,” Kurapika murmured, eyes already closed, that little smile still on his mouth.

_Every kid wants to be taken care of eventually.  Even grownups want that._

Leorio made for the outhouse in what he considered a rather undignified scurry; it wasn’t the ideal place to change but it was nearby and enclosed and would have to do for now.  He returned several minutes later to brush his teeth at the water spigot, and by then Kurapika was sound asleep, snuggled deep enough in the sleeping bag that only the top of his blond head was immediately visible.

Killua woke up sometime during the process of making breakfast—primarily involving some pancakes in a cast-iron skillet and coffee heating up in a ceramic percolator.  He wished he had some protein, but all of that was inside the caravan being properly refrigerated, so pancakes would have to do for now.  Killua climbed up onto the picnic table bench with a muffled yawn, sitting on his knees and watching Leorio bend over the fire, fastidiously checking the pancakes to make sure they didn’t burn.

“Today is the day, isn’t it,” he observed in a sleepy monotone, like he wasn’t interested, but if he _really_ wasn’t interested he wouldn’t mention it.  Leorio had learned that much about him in the last few days.

“Yeah.”

“You think your friend will come?”

“He said he would if I didn’t turn up, and obviously I haven’t.  Assuming he managed to get his car repaired I have no reason to think he wouldn’t.”  Pockle was a reliable guy, and Leorio was kind of glad he was the one he’d gotten in touch with.  “He’s an early bird, too, so if he makes it out here I expect to see him around noon.”

Killua was silent for a long moment, looking out towards the road and the park entrance, almost like he expected to see someone pull in right away.  After a long pause his voice pitched even lower, with a kind of cool seriousness that made the back of Leorio’s neck prickle.  “What will you do if he doesn’t come?”

Leorio didn’t want to answer that, or maybe just didn’t know how—he’d been asking himself the same question for the last two days, since his yes-or-no deal with Gon.  So he did what he usually did in situations like these, and resorted to joking.  “Why, are you worried?”

“Yes.”

Leorio looked up, with what must have been a flabbergasted expression because Killua rolled his eyes and elaborated.  “Look, I get that our situations aren’t exactly the same, since for whatever reason being here with Gon means I have some level of protection that you don’t.  But I’m concerned about what happens to you, because if something goes wrong, whatever happens to you could happen to me, too.  It’s self-interest, old man.”  He turned up his nose slightly, chin in his hand, like he thought he could brush off his own concern with an aloof front.

Leorio flipped the pancakes one at a time so that they came out perfectly golden brown, filling the air with a sweet, fluffy smell.  He remembered thinking how difficult Killua was going to be when he met the two boys on the road, nearly a week ago now.  He thought about the conversation he had with Gon, on the path to the treehouse, and wondered if Gon was still thinking about what he said, and whether this was really the best thing for them.  “Are you worried enough to want to leave?”

Killua straightened, eyes wide.  “What?  No, absolutely not.  I mean, this place is kind of weird, and your situation is definitely creepy, but I’d take it any day of the week over going back home.”

Leorio thought about the girl from the clinic, wondered what had happened to her; his silence must have made Killua uncomfortable because he shifted on the bench and dragged the box of food over to rummage through it, effectively ending that line of conversation.  Leorio let out a breath and tried to cut off the spool of his thoughts as well, thinking instead about his conversations with Kurapika and respecting the boys’ wishes, thinking about his apology to Gon and the importance of treating them like people instead of children.  If Killua wanted to stay here, if he really felt it was his best option, then maybe Leorio should accept that he knew his own feelings best.

He turned the finished pancakes onto a paper plate, and Killua pulled a quart-sized ziploc bag out of the box, full of raspberries.  “We picked these yesterday.  They’ll be good on the pancakes.”

“Did you wash them?”

“Yep!”

“Can you mix some sugar in with them?  Not a lot, just a spoonful is enough.”

Killua made a noise that he could only describe as dubious acquiescence, and dug through the box for a large spoon and the small plastic container of sugar.  He seemed bored at the prospect of stirring a bit of sugar through the whole bag of berries, but visibly brightened when they started giving up juice, creating their own syrup, like he’d never imagined such a thing could be accomplished just with sugar.

He didn’t require prompting to spoon generous helpings of the berries onto the fluffy piles of pancakes that Leorio plated up, and once that was finished Leorio snaked a plate away from Killua’s elbow and crept around to his sleeping bag, where Kurapika was still snuggled into the pillow with the top edge of the bag covering all but the golden crown of his head.  Leorio crouched down to gently shake him awake, then gave up and sat crosslegged in the grass, tugging the flap back from Kurapika’s face.  “Hey.  I brought you food.”

Kurapika’s nose scrunched up in response to being uncovered, eyes squeezing shut as he reached up to rub at them for a long moment before blinking open, slowly focusing.  It was unbearably cute and Leorio sat with the plate of pancakes in his lap and felt his ears growing hot, awkwardly saying nothing while Kurapika pushed himself up, shuffling back out of the bag until he was sitting near the pillow.  “Was I asleep for long?”

“No.”  Leorio felt himself staring and jerked his eyes to the side self-consciously, looking around at everything possible that wasn’t Kurapika while he took another long drink from the water jug.  “How, uh, how are you feeling?”

“It turns out my front lawn isn’t all that comfortable.  You should probably revoke one of my star ratings.”  He pushed his hair casually back behind one ear, red earring bumping against his neck, staring at Leorio while Leorio stared resolutely at the side of the caravan and watched him in peripheral, heart thrumming unnaturally and definitely not thinking about things like waking up in Kurapika’s bed and watching his wide brown eyes blink open in the sunlight and leaning in for a good morning kiss or any other romantic nonsense.

“Leorio,” Kurapika said after a moment and far too many heartbeats of silence, soft and gently amused, and it felt like he’d yanked on a string connected directly to Leorio’s stomach.  “Is that for me?”

“Ahh—yeah.”  Leorio lifted the plate and held it awkwardly in front of him for a few seconds, wondering what he was doing and when he’d become so inept at the simplest of things, then just as awkwardly reached over to set the plate on Kurapika’s lap.  “It’s not much, but there’s some vitamin C at least, and you should make sure to have some protein with lunch.”  His voice reached a gruff pitch, out of place with the burning sensation in his ears and the way his heart was pounding because _Kurapika just kept smiling at him like that_.  “And drink more water.  At least two liters today.”

His hands were still on either side of the plate, and Kurapika reached up for his left, curling his fingers around his palm, and Leorio felt everything in him go abruptly still, skin burning under the touch.

Kurapika’s eyes were as warm as coffee.  “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Leorio grunted around the lump that had appeared in his throat, mouth suddenly dry.  Kurapika was closer than he realized, keeping him leaned over with the hand curled around his.  He could smell cinnamon, and something else that was green and fresh.

“I mean it.”  Kurapika’s fingers were tangling with his and everything else was moving in slow motion.  “It’s been a long time--a _very_ long time since anyone took care of me.  I’d forgotten how nice it was.”

“Yeah,” Leorio echoed dumbly, then stuttered and made an effort to pull himself back together and not just stare blankly into Kurapika’s eyes.  “I mean, it’s sort of in my job description but.  Uhh… you’re worth it.  Care.  Taking, uh, care of.”

Were they even having a conversation?  Leorio felt like he was just stumbling over words, hoping they were the right ones, and apparently they were because Kurapika seemed pleased.  Smile showing a bit of teeth, eyes squinting up with it, just the barest hint of pink on his cheeks.  Fuck, he was beautiful.  Did he say that out loud?  Had they started out this close?  He could feel the puff of air on his chin when Kurapika’s breath hitched, realized a beat too late that the hitch happened because he was brushing his thumb over the curve of Kurapika’s cheek.   _When did they get this close?_

Their noses were bumping, and Leorio’s eyes slipped closed.  Kurapika whispered something, warm and damp against his lips.

“I smell pancakes!”

Gon popped out from under the blankets like a jack-in-the-box, nose raised to sniff the air for a moment before springing out of the sleeping bag nest and hopping over to the table barefoot.  If he noticed that he’d completely ruined someone else’s moment, he gave no sign.

Leorio had retreated back into his own, much colder space, heart hammering in his throat, the burn in his ears traveling down his neck.  Kurapika had curled in on himself, the golden fall of his bangs hiding his eyes and one hand covering his mouth, cheeks violently pink in between.

They’d been so close.  He could practically taste it, tongue dragging over his own lips, fingers tingling where they’d touched Kurapika’s face.

Gon said Leorio’s name in a pleased singsong, kneeling on the picnic table bench with a plate in his hands, and made a concerned noise when he didn’t get a response, twisting around to look over his shoulder.  “Did something happen?”

“They were being gross,” Killua said, in a tone remarkably like a disapproving parent.

“Oh.  More raspberries!”

The next time Leorio looked over Kurapika had schooled himself back into his usual cool neutrality, cutting his pancakes into squares with a fork.  Leorio still felt like a giddy mess, irrationally furious that he could just shrug off their brief steamy almost-kiss and go on with breakfast as though nothing had happened, so at length he grabbed the mostly-empty jug from where it was still sitting by the pillow and grumbled something about refilling it, standing up to stalk across the lot in a huff.

He could still feel Kurapika’s hand tangled with his, like it was burned into his skin.

When he straightened from the spigot and turned around Gon had taken over his place in the grass at Kurapika’s side, so he continued to stalk around, found a towel to wipe the excess water off the outside of the jug, and plopped down at the picnic table to eat his own plate of pancakes in mild and quiet contempt while Killua shot him smug looks and ate the remaining berries out of the bag with a spoon.

Eventually he heard the sleeping bag rustle, followed by Kurapika rising to his feet, steadying himself on Gon’s shoulder, and suddenly Leorio felt nothing but concern, scrambling off the picnic table to follow him to the caravan door.

“It’s fine,” Kurapika said, halfway up the metal steps.  “I’m just going to sleep on my own bed for a while.”

Leorio held up the water jug awkwardly, unable to think of anything while looking at Kurapika directly other than how soft his skin had been under his fingertips.  “Keep drinking.”

Kurapika laughed, just a little bit, either at his flustered expression or flat command or just how weird and tense the atmosphere between them was.  But it meant he wasn’t angry, or upset, or even really disappointed, and that was probably good.

“Okay.”  Their fingers brushed when Kurapika took the jug.  “I will.  Doctor’s orders, right?”

Leorio swallowed, but returned the small smile, pink and fleeting as the door swung closed.  “Right.”

“I’ll see you in a bit, Leorio,” Kurapika said, just before drawing it shut, something low and pleased in his voice that made his chest flutter, at first, until he remembered that he was waiting for a ride.

But before he could protest the door was closed, and he was standing outside of it, shivering and strangely unsettled.

“It’s gonna get hot today,” Gon commented from somewhere near his elbow, voice airy and unconcerned, eyes scanning the cloudless sky above them.  His gaze settled on Leorio after a few seconds, and he tilted his head with a smile.  “I hope your friend comes.”

Something shifted in the pit of his stomach, but it wasn’t the fluttery feeling Kurapika had left him with.  “Me too.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Leorio cleared his throat, adjusted his grip and straightened out of the slouch he’d been walking in, feeling some measure of confidence once he was standing tall and fully responsible for his decision, however poor it turned out to be. “Alright,” he said, “It’s a deal. Lead the way.”_
> 
> In which decisions are made, some worse than others, and some much, MUCH worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interracial mafia lesbians? Interracial mafia lesbians!
> 
> Otherwise: good luck. :)
> 
> [ty @reeology for beta reading on short notice so I could get this up for Leorio's birthday.]

> _oh the river, oh the river, it's running free_   
>  _and oh the joy, oh the joy it brings to me_   
>  _but I know it'll have to drown me_   
>  _before I can breathe easy_

* * *

 

“Amane.”

It was Friday.  It was Friday, and it was far too early on a Friday morning for Canary to be saying her name in that tone.  She was sound asleep (or had been a few seconds before) with her face buried in a pillow and the creep of sunlight behind the miniblinds turning the insides of her eyelids orange.  She opened her mouth to say something only to find that it was already open, and to catch a mouthful of pillowcase that she then had to squirm to get rid of, eyes scrunching up, pressing her nose into the pillow.  “No work today.  Sleep.”

“ _Amane_ ,” Canary hissed, voice dropping to a low whisper.

It wasn’t really fair that Canary was the sort of person who woke up at 6:30am on the dot regardless of what time she went to sleep the night before and went about her day as though sleep were something easily accomplished and just as easily cast aside.  On the plus side, there was usually coffee and breakfast already made when Amane woke up.  On the not so plus side, Canary was frequently the one who woke Amane up, even when she didn’t want or need to be woken up.

“So mean,” Amane grumbled to her pillow.

The bed dipped under Canary’s weight and the shift in air and warmth and level of light burning through her eyelids changed enough that Amane knew she was hovering just above her.  Amane wondered if she was trying to be intimidating, or maybe about to inflict a different set of tactics to get her to wake up.

But after a moment’s hesitation she just said, very low and very serious, “We have a problem.”

Amane's eyes snapped open, and Canary shifted aside while she sat up and pulled her legs over the edge of the bed, tossing the blankets aside.  She reached for her bathrobe, categorizing her current needs—hygiene, food, whether or not her suit needed pressing and when she'd last cleaned her gun.  On the mattress, Canary tucked her legs under herself, cell phone in her hand.  Her thumb was pressed against the black screen like she expected a call at any second, still in the gray star-patterned leggings and lavender singlet she slept in.  Amane's movements slowed, and she tugged the robe over her shoulders.

"Did Gotoh call?"

"No," Canary said, and paused, head turned slightly away like she was either listening for something from outside the half-open door or avoiding Amane's eyes, or both.  "Not yet, anyway."

"We're not being called in?"

"Not yet," Canary repeated, and looked directly at her, tilting her head slightly towards the door.

Amane frowned and stood, tying the robe around her waist, and peered out the door into the greater expanse of their apartment.  It was small—the advertisement had called it "cozy" and "charming" but a single bedroom for the price was unlikely to come much larger.  The bathtub wouldn't accommodate anyone older than five, and the kitchen was crowded with two bodies in it.  But it had a breakfast bar, at a height comfortable enough for the cushioned piano bench they got from a thrift store and with enough space for an extra, small flat-panel television.

And sitting on that bench, watching that television, merrily eating a bowl of Apple Jacks, was Alluka Zoldyck.

Amane stifled what would have been a noise of surprise and backed into the bedroom, pushing the door until it was shut but not latched, hand still on the frame when she turned back to Canary.  Her voice pitched to a whisper.  “How did she get here?”

“If I had to guess I’d say she walked.  Or ran, more likely.”  Canary thumbed the screen of her phone to life and pulled up a video, holding it up for Amane to watch.  “This has been all over the news this morning.  I was about to come wake you up when she knocked on the door.”

She peered at the video for the first minute, not sure what was happening, then took the phone in both hands and sat down on the bed, watching the coverage of the explosion at the Zoldyck mansion.  There were interviews with law enforcement, reports of the family members in custody and those still on the run, and she absorbed them all before looking up.  “You haven’t heard from Gotoh?”  There was a slight tremor in her voice, knowing the answer but needing to confirm.

“I’ve called him twice.  It’s not protocol, but since it’s an emergency…”

“Someone is going to come looking for her,” Amane said, taking a breath and falling back on the routine her mind had latched on earlier, when Canary said they had a problem.  Necessities, uniform, weapon.  And a plan.  They were going to need one, and without Gotoh’s direction they’d have to come up with it on their own.  “Someone is going to come looking for us, too.”

Canary dropped to sit next to her, the length of her arm warm against Amane’s shoulder.  “It won’t be easy.  They don’t have pictures—not of us, anyway, and if they have any of Alluka they’re probably not the right gender.  They’ll have to dig through a lot of layers before they can even find this apartment.  So we have some time.”

“Someone could have tailed her.”

“If the police spotted her leaving the premises, or knew she was a Zoldyck, she would have been detained immediately, not followed.  If someone followed her, it’s probably not someone from that side of the law.”

“That could be even worse.”

“I know.”  Canary tilted her head to the side, until one of the coarse coils of her hair bumped against Amane’s forehead.  “I’ve got your back.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.”  Amane tangled their fingers together, quiet and warm for a long moment with her head resting against Canary’s, counting her breaths in and out.  A heartbeat of a pause before a quick kiss, sweet with the mint of Canary’s toothpaste, and then she sighed.  “We need her account firsthand.  Have you tried the emergency backup number?”

“I sent a text about twenty minutes ago.  No response yet.”

“Okay.”  Amane got to her feet, stretching her free arm over her head and tugging on Canary’s hand with the other.  “Let’s go talk to her.”

Alluka was swinging her legs at the piano bench when they came out, head propped on her folded arms as she watched the TV, cereal bowl empty at her elbow.  She was dressed in a pink corduroy jumper over a light blue turtleneck, a little unseasonable for late May.  Her white sneakers were scuffed and her knees were dirty, long black hair unbrushed and looped in a tangled mess down her back.  Amane slid onto the bench next to her while Canary settled on the opposite side of the breakfast bar, hip against the counter, phone still in her hand.

“Good morning, Miss Alluka.”

The girl tilted her head to the side so she could look up while still resting on her arms, smiling brightly.  “Morning!”

“Are you still hungry at all?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Amane exchanged a glance with Canary over the counter, receiving a slight nod in return.  Alluka seemed untroubled, so perhaps she’d run away before the events at the mansion and didn’t yet know what had happened.  “Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure.”  Alluka lifted her head, blinking a bit like she’d started to sense the troubled tone behind the conversation but didn’t quite know why, just reacted physically, shifting to pull one leg up under herself.

“How did you know how to get here?”

“I remembered from when we went shopping last month, and we walked back here for lunch.”  Alluka shuffled from side to side, expression slowly gaining tension.  “I took a bus downtown and got off when I saw the bank and the ice cream shop we went to.  Are you mad?”

Canary answered, quietly, from her side of the counter.  “No, Miss, we’re just worried, and we want to know why you came here to see us by yourself.”

The girl looked a little relieved, but her expression slowly flattened, the corners of her mouth turning down, fingers curling and tugging at the hem of her jumper.  “I need your help.”

“With what?” Amane asked gently.

“I want to find my brother.”  There was a strangled quality to her voice, like she was trying too hard to keep it level.  “I didn’t think he would be gone this long.”

“You know where Master Killua is?”

“Gon said they would go somewhere safe.  I thought it would be okay, but I’m tired of being alone.”  Alluka’s knuckles whitened and she leaned forward, earnest and wide eyed with certainty.  Amane had thought she was holding back tears, but it was a different sort of emotion bubbling up in her throat, spilling out in her voice—a shaky sort of determination.  “Illumi and Milluki did something horrible last night and I’m scared.  I want to go where Killua is.  I want to be safe, too.”

Amane felt her own mouth hanging open, baffled and lost for any kind of response, seeing Canary just as still in her peripheral vision.  So Alluka _had_ been home at the mansion, and must know what happened--and this was the first time she had spoken about her missing brother since he disappeared.  Everyone, Amane included, had assumed she was heartbroken; they never would have suspected she had any idea where he was, all along.

“Miss Alluka,” Canary said, after the stunned silence had stretched itself painfully taut, “what happened last night?”

Alluka’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, quickly the first time and then a little slower, and Amane couldn’t tell if it was uncertainty or heavy consideration that made her hesitate.  She looked to the side last, to the empty space at her shoulder, and seemed to straighten a bit before she opened her mouth to speak.

Canary’s phone chirped.

The tone drew everyone’s attention instantly, conversation momentarily forgotten as Canary’s fingers tapped over the screen, smoothly, as collected and businesslike as the purse of her lips as she frowned.  “This isn’t the emergency number.”

“What?”

“Pass me the laptop.”

Amane reached across to the dining table to grab it and traded with Canary for the phone, open to a single text message.  A set of GPS coordinates were underlined in blue, followed only by a brief message:

_Bring your questions._

“Should I try replying?” Amane asked, waiting for the slight nod of approval from Canary while her fingers flew over the laptop keyboard, brown eyes reflecting the blue glow of the screen.  She fired off a brief response— _identify yourself_ —but the phone buzzed with an error message a bare second later.

“This number does not exist,” Amane read off, looking up just as Canary swung the laptop around to show a map with a blue marker in the center.

“It’s a cafe in the old linen district.  What do you think?”

Amane curled her hand around the phone as the screen went dark, eyes scanning the computer screen, reading over the street names, mentally cataloging potential threats, possibilities, courses of action.  Whether they were safer in public following an unsolicited lead from a number that didn’t exist or safer sitting quietly in a location that may have been compromised, that any of a variety of enemies could be closing in on at that very moment.  What were they supposed to do?  Where were the rest of the Zoldycks?  Why hadn’t Gotoh contacted them?

There were too many variables for a sound decision.

“Miss Alluka.”  Amane turned back to the girl, smiling faintly at her bowed head.  In lieu of any other orders, the chain of command trickled down to her—their charge, their responsibility, but also, at this moment, their boss.  Whatever she ordered they would see through, ensuring her safety through any means necessary.

“I want to go,” Alluka said softly, relaxed for the first time since they started talking, hands folded together in her lap.

 

 

 

Leorio had a lot of feelings by 5pm on Friday, and most of them had to do with staring at a rutted dirt road for the last several hours and watching nothing happen.  A few of them had to do with alternately staring at the brushed silver surface of the caravan door and wondering if Kurapika would wake up soon, if he was feeling better, if he’d get a chance to say goodbye properly should his ride actually show up.  He was dressed fully in his suit, briefcase packed up neatly; his sleeping bag was rolled up and sat on the bench of the picnic table, next to Kurapika’s pillow, piled with the folded shirt and flannel pants from the free bins.  By 5pm he figured that his hope to leave today was once again premature, and like every day before, not a single vehicle made its way up the private drive, or turned in and kicked up dust along the ruts.  All was still and quiet.

Gon and Killua were a welcome break from the unnatural silence, although Leorio didn’t participate in their chatter, just trudged behind them towards the central building with a bored sort of resignation.  He’d promised Gon he wouldn’t try to leave again until Friday, but now Friday had come and was quickly running out, and the attempt he thought he’d get to make was dissolving faster than an ice cube used to cool hot tea.  What could he even do now, if even his most reliable friend couldn’t manage to get out here and pick him up?

_Until sundown on the summer solstice,_ Gon had said, and the thought was accompanied by an ominous tug in his gut.  It was easy to feel vaguely normal, with the four of them around the fire pit in Kurapika’s lot, like this was just an odd and unexpected camping trip—but then he thought about Gon’s circle, and Hisoka, and the blood on Kurapika’s sleeve, and how circumstances always aligned themselves just right to block his progress.

But Gon said there were ways out.  More than one.  If he could just _find_ one of them…

The air inside the central building was warm and heavy; the front door was propped open to let in a breeze and a fan sat whirring away on the counter, blowing air into the manager’s office, a large stack of quarters piled next to its base.  Gon and Killua raced in ahead of him, snatching up the change and promptly elbowing each other to get to the soda machine.

The door to the office opened as Leorio approached, and the elderly manager peered through, beckoning him inside.  No, Leorio didn’t think elderly was the right word—he was certainly old, wrinkled, mostly bald, and his hair and beard were stark white, but _elderly_ invoked a kind of frailty that he associated more with the residents in the memory care ward than this man.  Netero seemed too spry, he didn’t hunch or limp or shuffle about like he suffered from arthritis or joint deterioration, which was so common in the older people Leorio worked with.  He moved like a man half his age, and for some reason that made Leorio uneasy.

“Leorio!” Gon’s voice piped up from the other side of the counter, along with half of his face, until he hefted himself up by the elbows so he could address the two inside the office properly.  “Do you want a drink?”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“Okay!” He disappeared again with a clap of shoes on the concrete floor, and Netero chuckled, seated in his rolling chair and rifling through a desk drawer.

“About once a month I clean under and around the machines in the laundry area, just to make sure there’s no bugs or mold accumulating anywhere, and there’s always a lot of spare change to be had.  I’ve gotten in the habit of just giving it to those two.  Aha, here you are.”  He pulled a paper loose and turned in the chair to present it to Leorio.  “Dial the number just as shown here, then the one you want to call, area code first.”

The idea of Netero moving and cleaning around heavy washers and dryers on his own did nothing to quell that sense of unease, so Leorio just thanked him graciously and accepted the paper.  He turned back to the main desk at that point, leaving Leorio with the phone, but a simple turn of the back didn’t do much to convince him that the old man wasn’t going to listen to every word he said.

Well.  What could it hurt?  What choice did he have?  Gon seemed to like and trust him, at least, so that was something.

He fished his sheet of phone numbers out of his briefcase and picked up the receiver, thumbing carefully through the code and then the number for Pokkle’s shop, almost expecting nothing to happen, or the call to drop, or the phone to just randomly implode and stop working entirely.

After a few rings, though, the line caught and Pokkle’s voice came across, tinny with waves of static muffling it.  “Hello?”

“Pokkle?  It’s Leorio.”

“Oh, good!  I was—u’d call back.  Jeez—nection is terrible though.”

“It is, can you hear me okay?”

“Well enough.”

“What happened?  Is your car still in the shop?”

“No, it’s fixed.  I drove out—is morning.  Not—ure I got—ections but it—definitely highway 404.  Drove up—own it a few times.  It dead ends—out 12 miles sou—the freeway, just past the inters—ith rural route 39—didn’t see a gas sta—r an RV park—nything.”

Leorio raked a hand back through his hair, feeling the sweat forming at his temples from the warm air in the office and something tightening in his chest that was starting to feel like desperation.  That compounded with the already present frustration, which in turn compounded with a tremble in his shoulders that he knew was barely restrained anger.  “Are you sure?  Maybe there’s more than one highway 404.  Maybe it’s actually north of the freeway.”

“I tr—oing north, too—thing for miles but farm—d it ends at a th—way intersect—with another highway.”  Pokkle let out a grumble that was just barely audible over the line, and Leorio thought he might hear a clacking in the background like computer keys.  “I’ve resear—this thoroughly, there—o other highway 404—in a thousand miles o—ban City.  I’m sorry, Leorio, I do—know what to tell you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Pokkle, it’s like you’re telling me that this place doesn’t exist!  Hello?”  Leorio made the demand into the phone a few notches louder than was strictly necessary, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Gon straining to peer over the counter.  The line buzzed with static and then abruptly went dead, clicking a few times before the dial tone rang in his ear.

Leorio stared at the receiver in his hand for a long moment, the tone from the speaker sounding progressively more ominous before he finally clapped it down in the cradle, feeling numb, a strange tingling in his hands and a sick feeling in his stomach.

Someone said his name somewhere behind him and he twisted around to see Gon holding the door open with his shoulder, looking up at him with the corners of his mouth and eyes turned down.  Leorio moved his tongue to speak and discovered that his mouth was dry, curled his fingers around the handle of his briefcase and found his palms were sweating.

“Leorio,” Gon said again, in the same tone at the same volume, but somehow it rang like a gong inside his head.

“I need to take a walk,” he said, to Gon or Netero or no one in particular.  His legs felt unnaturally long and he brushed past Gon faster than he expected, only caught a fleeting glimpse of Killua sitting crosslegged on the concrete floor by the vending machines surrounded by open soda cans and snack-sized bags of chips.  Outside the sun was blindingly bright, the air was hot and stifling, and his feet kicked up dust on the dirt road that made everything feel gritty and dry.

Maybe it had been easy to accept before now that everything happening was just a coincidence, disproportionately unfortunate as it might be.  Maybe it was easy to think that he’d just landed in a community of strange backward shut-ins without decent phone service, who had their own strange culture with weird rules—and maybe some of them were a little unhinged and might want to toss him into an oubliette and/or make clothes out of his skin or something.

The possibility that wherever he was, was actually inaccessible to anyone outside, and that the reverse was true—that the outside world was inaccessible to him, also, didn’t make sense.  There was no rational, scientific explanation for that.  Places couldn’t just exist in their own little bubbles with no route in or out.

And there was a way out—Gon said there was more than one, and he needed to believe that Gon was telling the truth.  He was too earnest and guileless to be deceptive or deliberately misleading and if Leorio started suspecting everyone around him, this entire situation would become categorically worse.  But most importantly, there was one thing he knew for certain—

_He needed to get the fuck out of here._

“Ah, we meet again,” a voice said, and Leorio looked up from his feet abruptly, startled out of his dazed train of thoughts.  He wasn’t sure where he was—he’d been walking blindly, maybe eastward from the central building, following the dirt ruts under his feet, and now he squinted through the sunlight glaring on his glasses, not sure how to react to the person he’d just encountered.

So he just said, “Tonpa.”

“Still here I see,” the rotund man said pleasantly, hobbling across a vacant lot on a cane, favoring his left leg.  “Well, I can’t say I’m disappointed, since I could use an extra hand today.  Are you busy?”

Leorio blinked slowly, thinking about the cupcakes and how he still didn’t really understand what had happened with them.  If he’d had less on his mind during the Q&A session he finagled he might have thought to ask about that.  Regardless, he wasn’t really sure he could trust this person.  “I’m… not really, but what’s going on?”

“Oh, just a flareup of gout.  I have an herbal remedy of my grandmother’s that usually takes care of it, but it happens that I’m out of feverfew.  There’s a good patch of it that grows in the forest, in a clearing about halfway along that path I told you about—the one that goes through to the freeway?  But of course in this condition it’ll be difficult to get there on my own.”

It struck Leorio as oddly convenient that Tonpa was around to mention the forest path again just as he was starting to feel desperate for a way to get out of here.  It made something nag at the back of his mind, mostly his conversation with Gon and the confirmation that his life was in danger.

“So if you’re inclined for a walk,” Tonpa continued, blissfully unaware of Leorio’s internal turmoil, “I could use the assistance, and you’d get a crack at the trail that leads out.  It would be an even deal.”

The word _deal_ rang through Leorio’s head like a bell, echoing back through all his thoughts to the ones nagging at his mind.  He realized that what bothered him most was that prior to now it seemed like Tonpa was eager to do him a favor, which went against the rules that Gon had outlined, even though it came across as overtly friendly.  Showing him the trail as a favor was suspicious; offering to show him the trail as part of a deal was less so.

It gave Leorio a modicum of safety, didn’t it?  Was Tonpa bound to keep up his end of the deal until it completed?  Or would he just do it regardless because otherwise he’d be indebted, which was apparently considered a bad thing.  Leorio scratched the back of his head, wondering if he should run back to the central building and get some clarification from Gon on how this worked.

“Well, I’m definitely interested in that trail, but I’m not exactly prepared to leave immediately…” he trailed off vaguely, thinking about Kurapika exhausted and dehydrated climbing into his caravan with that little smile for Leorio just before the door closed.  His number was still tucked into his breast pocket, but he ought to at least say goodbye properly.  He ought to maybe request just the smallest kiss, just to see what it was like.

Tonpa shrugged, leaning heavily on his cane.  “Then just come to the clearing and back.  You’ll get a feel for the trail and see how it continues past there, and then you can leave at your leisure.  Personally, I need to get out there now, or this is only going to get worse.”

Leorio curled his fingers around the handle of his briefcase, felt the sweat between his palm and the leather when he squeezed, felt the weight and heat of the sun on his shoulders when they flexed.  The air around him was stifling, and the last thing he’d tried to say to Pokkle was lingering around his edges like the remnants of a bad dream, dulling everything and prickling at his nerves.

_It’s like this place doesn’t exist._

This wasn’t a smart decision.  Something in him knew it wasn’t but also knew that he was going to do it anyway—because what the hell else was he supposed to do?  How did you escape from a place that wasn’t real?

He cleared his throat, adjusted his grip and straightened out of the slouch he’d been walking in, feeling some measure of confidence once he was standing tall and fully responsible for his decision, however poor it turned out to be.  “Alright,” he said, “It’s a deal.  Lead the way.”

 

 

 

Gon almost missed the crutches.  He hadn’t even realized how much he’d gotten used to listening to them until Killua or Killua’s voice would appear somewhere unexpected without the telltale lead in s _nick snick snick_ as he approached.  So Gon was startled, after tilting his head back to dump the last crumbs out of a bag of chips into his mouth, when he straightened and Killua was walking elbow-to-elbow with him, can of Dr. Pepper still in one hand.

“Ahh, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“I’ve been here the whole time, dummy.”

Gon made a show of pouting and shoved the empty bag into his pocket, satisfied by the crinkling sound it made, and increased his pace along the dirt road, as though testing if Killua could keep up with him.  He did.

And after a few minutes of walking in silence Killua cast his eyes to the side, soda can held defensively in front of his mouth.  “Think he’s okay?”

“Leorio?”  Gon pondered and hopped out of the rut he was walking in to balance on the raised center of the road.  “I don’t know.  I’m pretty sure he went this way when he left, so we’ll find out soon.”

Killua made a dubious noise.

“Are _you_ okay?”  Gon cast a glance across his shoulder, trying to read his friend’s expression—he’d heard the phone conversation, too.  Was it unsettling for him?  Did he regret coming here?  Gon didn’t like being uncertain, and bumped roughly against his shoulder.  “Do you want to go home?”

“NO!” Killua said explosively enough that it startled both of them, and they came to a halt.  “He asked me the same thing, and I told him no, absolutely not.  I don’t want to go home any more now than I did when we ran away.”

Gon didn’t like to think about that—the foster home he’d been in was particularly boring and restrictive, there were a lot of rules and a lot of things forbidden.  But he ended up staying there longer than anywhere else he’d been placed before, because he went to school with Killua, and that made everything bearable.

The first time Killua came into class in the morning with a dead look in his eyes, favoring his right arm, flinching away when Gon touched his shoulder, he learned that there were things in the world far more unbearable than strictness.

“Do you want to move back to the treehouse, then?  Your ankle is okay now, and it’s safer there.”

“I don’t know.”  Killua took a drink from the can and dropped it back down at his side, finger tapping against the aluminum thoughtfully.  “Maybe.”

Gon figured he knew what he was thinking, probably because he felt the same—he kind of liked Kurapika and Leorio, having people around who worried about them, having a regular supply of food.  It was nice, and it felt warm, and maybe that was what having a real family was supposed to be like.

“You’re right,” he said at length, once they were walking up to speed again, arms folded over the top of his head to shade himself from the sunlight.  “Those two are hopeless, they need us around to take care of them.”

Killua laughed, a bright silvery sound that made his shoulders shake, and Gon grinned.

They continued walking briskly, and Gon took the time to glance all around the lots they passed, trying to see where Leorio had gone and agreeing with Killua that he was far too tall for them to have this much trouble tracking him down.  They arrived at the point where the road curved the sharpest and closest to the forest, a point just between two of the gloomier vacant lots where burnt-out trailers sat growing weeds and wildflowers.  One of the paths leading into the forest began there, one that always looked far too welcoming, like the entrance to a park or a garden.  It was out of place, next to the wild overgrown lots with poppies drooping over the edges of charred linoleum.

Movement in the distance caught Gon’s eye, though, and Killua’s point drove home because even a few hundred yards in from the trailhead he could identify the set of Leorio’s shoulders.  He was towering over a smaller, rounder figure as they strolled side by side deeper into the forest.

Behind him, Killua’s soda can dropped to the ground with a hollow metallic thunk and Gon sprang forward, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“LEORIO!”

If his voice penetrated the forest far enough to reach Leorio’s ears he gave no sign, continued walking, and Gon skidded to a halt several feet from the first set of oak trees, standing sentinel over the path.  Killua stumbled next to him and Gon threw a hand in front of him to bring him to a halt, backing up several steps, breath coming fast, away from the trees and how the wood creaked and the branches loomed overhead, like they were growing taller, reaching out further.  A gust of wind rustled through the leaves and branches, rattling them together, and it sounded like dry cackling, mocking them.

“We can’t,” he stuttered to Killua, backing up further, feeling the feathered charm he’d given him snapping and burning under his hand.  “We can’t go after him.”

Killua’s eyes were wide, pupils reduced to pinpricks.  “No, I don’t want to go in there.”

“We have to get Kurapika.”

 

 

 

Gon banged repeatedly on the door of the caravan with increasing alarm until Killua rounded the back and yelled for him to come around, then crouched down so Gon could climb up on his shoulders and rap his fist on the covered window.  Long minutes passed with no response, with Gon guiding Killua to shuffle to the side until he could see through a gap between the light blue quilt and the edge of the window, and saw that the bed inside was unoccupied.

“He’s not here!” Gon announced, leaping down, running over to the door again to test and see if it was locked.  Of all the times to actually wake up and leave the camper on his own, Kurapika had picked the absolute worst.

Killua was still dusting Gon’s footprints off of his sleeves, ineffectively batting at the fabric.  “He probably went to the central building while we were looking for Leorio.”

Gon started running with only the barest acknowledgement, feet kicking up dust, all the faith in the world that Killua would follow.  The door to the central building slammed ominously behind them, but it was empty—the laundry and showers were empty, the shutter was closed on the office window and the door was locked.  Gon banged on it a few times anyway, and crouched down to make sure the lights inside had been turned off.

“He’s gotta be somewhere,” Gon muttered, pulling his feet under him, and peering past his bent knees at Killua.  “We have to find him.”

“I know.”

“Can you run?”

Killua tilted his head and scoffed, but wouldn’t look directly at him, which meant he was bluffing.  “Of course I can.”

“You can wait by the caravan, in case he comes back.”

“I can keep up with you,” Killua said, shoulders hunching up towards his ears, and Gon suspected he knew what wasn’t being said.

_I don’t want to be alone._

“Okay.”  He stood up in one swift movement, feet pounding on the concrete as he made for the door.  “Let’s go!”

By the time they made a full loop through the park from one end to the other and arrived back where they started, Gon was panting, bent over his knees to catch his breath.  Killua was limping along several yards behind him because his ankle was steadily weakening and he was too stubborn to admit it, and the sun was high and hot, burning through the late afternoon that might have been evening, if he had a watch to tell.  So of course it was frustrating when he looked up and Kurapika was walking down the lane towards him, next to Netero, strolling side by side with hands in their pockets like nothing was wrong in the world.

“Kurapika!” Gon called, and there was just enough alarm in his voice that Kurapika broke into a jog as soon as he caught sight of them, arriving just as Killua caught up beside him.

“What?  What’s wrong?”  Kurapika looked from Gon’s flushed face to Killua’s hand on his shoulder, weight carefully shifted off of his ankle.  “Where’s Leorio?”

“He went into the forest with Tonpa.”

Gon was never one to beat around the bush, and in this case stating the problem directly was the swiftest route to resolving it.  But Kurapika’s eyes flashed red, and something in his stomach dropped, and he almost wished he’d softened the blow somehow.

“Oho,” Netero observed, one hand curled around his beard.  “That’s unfortunate.”

Kurapika’s voice was even and hard.  “How long?”

“I’m not sure.  An hour or two?  We’ve been looking all over for you.”  Something in Gon’s nature wanted to take a step back, and he felt it echoing through Killua’s hand on his shoulder, sensing that his friend had shifted behind him just slightly.

Kurapika might have noticed their apprehension, because his voice softened slightly, although his expression didn’t.  “Gon, take Killua and go back to the caravan.  Stay together, and stay inside your circle until I get back.  Understand?”

Gon nodded once, sharply, and reached up for the hand on his shoulder, threading his fingers together with Killua’s until their hands were clasped tightly.

Netero hummed as though he was observing an unexpected plot twist in a television show, looking sideways at Kurapika.  “You understand what you’re doing?”

“I do, and I’m prepared for the consequences.”  Kurapika closed his eyes with a breath, exhaling when he opened them, looking at Gon.  They were brown again.  “I’ll bring him back.  Go.”

“Okay.”

Something black flashed across Gon’s vision, and there was a rush of sound, like something whipping through the air.  He blinked, and Kurapika was gone—only the slight sway in the grass where he’d been standing an instant before indicating he’d ever been present.

“Well,” Netero said, pleasantly, turning on his heel to walk back towards the central building, “I’d better not get involved any further.  Sorry I can’t see you two home.”

“That’s okay!  We’re going now,” Gon called after him, equally pleasant, tugging on Killua’s hand as he started walking, trying to take a brisk pace.  Killua’s injury made him lag a bit, but he clung to Gon’s hand with increasing strength, until he slowed enough to look back and see the wide-eyed expression on his friend’s face.

“Gon,” he whispered, like he expected something unseen to be listening in on them.  “What just happened?”

He adjusted his pace so Killua could walk comfortably, close beside him, and considered this with a frown.  “I’m not really sure.  But I think we should do as Kurapika says.”

“He’s doing Leorio a favor.”

“Yes.  A big one.  A really, _really_ big one.”

Killua wasn’t going to say that he was shaken, or that he was scared, or that he’d never seen someone vanish in a flash of shadow and sound right before his eyes, but Gon could tell that was what he was thinking by the tremor in the shoulder pressed against his, the tension in Killua’s hand.

He did say, very quietly, several paces later, “I trust you, Gon.”  And Gon smiled.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Try to remember how you got here.”  
>  “My friends ditched me. We were out joyriding or something. I told you that before.”  
> Kurapika sighed, frustration apparent, but at least he kept the bite out of his voice. “That’s the conclusion you’ve drawn, yes, but it’s not what you _remember _.” He looked up finally, something profoundly weary in the stare he cast through the golden fall of his bangs. “What do you remember, Leorio?”_
> 
> In which Leorio's situation comes to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey wow it's been a while huh. Well, the big bang is over now and I'm on break so let's rock this out. I recommend _Dangerous_ by Big Data because that is the entirety of this chapter right here. Enjoy the big reveal.
> 
> Thanks @adulterclavis for her tireless efforts at keeping my sentences under control.

 

> _they're right under my bed, they're on patrol_  
>  _here they come, yeah here they come_  
>  _out of the shadows_  
>  _to take me to the court because they know_  
>  _that I'll shut this down_  
>  _cause they've been watching all my windows_  
>  _they've gathered up the warrant cause they_
> 
> _(I've gotta get out of here)_

* * *

 

The light was starting to dim to gold with the approaching sunset, and it was dimmer still under the thick canopy of trees; Leorio squinted at the path in front of him, bent halfway over so Tonpa could lean on his shoulder.  It was the third time they’d ended up like this, when the cane wasn’t enough to keep the rotund little man going, and halfway through the second Leorio had given up and just carried him piggyback until his arms were sore.  He wasn’t keen on doing that again, but they’d already spent more than two hours walking, far longer than Tonpa had told him it would take to cross the forest, and they’d yet to arrive in any clearing.

Furthermore, the pleasant and familiar oak trees at the edge of the forest had quickly given way to tall conifers with bare gray trunks and thick, ominous canopies, roots buried in muddy soil.  The air smelled rich, like dirt and tree sap and something musty that made him think of mold or mushrooms; it was cooler under the trees but he could still feel the weight of the heat beyond them, as though the sun was pressing down on his shoulders despite the fact that only a few stray beams could make it through the thick branches.

A slight breeze rustled through the trees from time to time, but otherwise the forest was quiet in a way that set Leorio on edge—no birds, no scurrying animals or insects, just a stillness that made him feel like he was being watched, like something was holding its breath, waiting.  Talking to Tonpa didn’t alleviate it much despite the man's complete inability to shut up; they started with an extensive explanation of the herbal remedy his grandmother taught him and moved on to her knowledge of plants, a discussion of local species, and then somehow from there to cooking.  Leorio was ostensibly paying attention, but couldn’t recall the specifics of anything Tonpa said, too distracted by his surroundings—or perhaps he just didn't care enough for it to stick in his memory.

Eventually there was a lull in the slightly one-sided conversation when Tonpa shifted back onto his cane, shuffling along under his own power again.  Leorio outpaced him in about five steps, awkwardly trying to slow on his long legs, one hand stuffed in his pocket and the other dangling his briefcase over his shoulder.  “How much further, do you think?  You said the freeway was about a two hour walk and we haven’t even hit the halfway point.”

“Well, you’ve had to accommodate me and my bad leg,” Tonpa replied quickly, picking up the pace slightly with a self-deprecating chuckle.  “It’s not much further.  We should be able to see the clearing from that bend up there.”  He gestured ahead to where the path curved to the right, visible for several yards until it disappeared among the tree trunks and low brush.

Leorio frowned to himself and checked his watch, uncertain that Tonpa’s pace had anything to do with the hour it theoretically _should_ have taken them to reach this clearing somehow becoming two and a half.  Suspicion was roiling in his gut, a growing awareness that something was wrong, that maybe the deal he’d been offered hadn’t been what he'd expected and wouldn’t protect him after all.  But what could he do about it at this point?  Turn around and run?  If he backed out on his end of the deal, what would happen to him?

His pace slowed further and Tonpa was several feet ahead of him when they rounded the bend, so Leorio heard the pleased sound he made before their destination came into view.  Some fifty feet ahead there was indeed a broad, sun-drenched sweep of grass, herbs and wildflowers drooping over a path that narrowed to the faintest trail as it passed the crumbling gray stone well sitting near the center.

“Here we go, just like I told you,” Tonpa said, waiting for him to catch up and fall into step alongside him, slapping Leorio heartily on the back.  “Almost there.”

And when they got there, the deal would be up.  Leorio felt his pulse speed, flooded with uncertainty at what might happen when he passed over that barrier between the  forest and the small grassy meadow.  He wondered if the game was up, if he was about to die in some imaginary place in the middle of nowhere without a single soul in the world knowing what had become of him.

A sudden noise overhead jerked his head back sharply—the heavy beating of wings.  Leorio searched the tree branches above him for a bird, the first sign of life he’d heard in three hours, but the canopy was empty and silent, not even a breeze stirring the heavy branches.

When he looked back down, Kurapika was sitting on the edge of the well, hands propped on the stones, legs crossed at the ankles, watching them.

Leorio came to an abrupt halt, and Tonpa did as well—just as both of their feet landed in the grass, which meant that they had successfully arrived at the clearing and that the deal was probably fulfilled, if Leorio had to make an argument.  There was an unexpected element to it, though, and Tonpa was oddly still at his side, cane creaking under his hand and an increasingly sour expression on his face.

Kurapika didn’t seem to care about Tonpa or his presence, however; he just kept staring directly at Leorio, waiting as he took a few hesitant steps forward.  He was wearing cropped jeans turned up just under the knee and a dark red sleeveless hoodie, and it was probably an inappropriate moment to appreciate his cute wardrobe or how nice his legs looked or how the gap where the zipper was tugged down displayed his collarbones perfectly.

Mostly because _how the hell was he even here?_

“Kurapika,” Leorio said, finally breaking the silence just as a low rumble like a growl began in Tonpa’s throat.  “What are you doing here?”

“I came to rescue you, of course.”

The growl stopped abruptly as Tonpa started laughing, and the sudden switch made him choke a bit, both sounds resolving into a coughing fit that left him bent over his cane and practically shaking with mirth—and somehow Leorio didn’t think it was actually good-humored.

Kurapika ignored him.  “Gon told me you went into the forest.  That was a very poor decision, Leorio, and we need to leave.  Right now.”

He stood up from his seat on the well, but Leorio instinctively took a step back.  “How did you get here before us?”

“A shortcut,” Kurapika said, still moving closer despite Leorio’s misgivings, cool exterior barely wavering.  “I know my way around here.  We need to be out by sunset, or you’ll be killed.”  He came to a halt finally, holding out one hand, palm up, fully expecting Leorio to take it.

Leorio hesitated.

He might have voiced more of his uncertainty—how Kurapika appeared so suddenly, how he knew where they were going or how he found them, why he chose to appear at this most convenient moment to extract Leorio just as he was no longer obligated to finish the deal he'd agreed to.  Something wasn’t adding up, and something in his gut wondered if the boy in front of him was really Kurapika at all or just some other entity trying to trick him.  Or, deeper down,  if perhaps Kurapika, who seemed to have the ability to appear and disappear with the sound of a bird’s wings beating overhead, was never the kind and safe person he expected to begin with.

Before he could dwell on any of this, though, Tonpa’s laughter burst forth in a sudden roar.

“I can’t believe it.  You’re here to save him.  YOU.”  His laugh was deep and rich and sickening, gurgling in his throat.  “Her majesty’s precious chimera, indebting himself to a worthless human just to keep him alive?”  He threw his head back with another peal of raucous, unamused mirth, and jabbed one thick finger in the air towards Kurapika, smile stretched wide and vicious.  “You’re going to rot here for eternity.  Why even bother trying to gain the upper hand when you’re doing such a good job of destroying yourself, _kuurta_.”

Leorio sensed the movement before he saw it, jumped back when Kurapika spun and he didn’t even see his leg connect with Tonpa’s head—just saw his bulbous body fly across the clearing and tumble hard into the grass.  He was still chuckling, struggling to push himself up, eyes gleaming preternaturally through the stalks of grass and wildflowers.  “It’s worth it to lose just to watch you suffer,” he sniggered, shaking too hard with laughter to rise.  “Go on, take your precious human and go.  Good luck getting out of the forest by nightfall!”

“Ignore him,” Kurapika said in a low hiss, almost a whisper, stepping in close to Leorio again.  His cool facade was gone, brown eyes wide, worriedly looking Leorio over like he expected to see something bad on his person, a fatal wound, or rejection, maybe.  He was afraid.  “We have to get out of here _now_ , Leorio.  Please.”  Kurapika held his hand up again, quivering slightly in the air between them.  “Take my hand.”  He swallowed thickly.  “And don’t look back.”

Leorio felt sick.  He glanced across the clearing, trying to catch a glimpse of where the path continued—but even if he found it, was it really a way out?  If it was, would Kurapika stop him from going that way?  He didn’t think that Kurapika would, or at least he didn’t _want_ to think so.  He wanted to think that the fear and worry in his eyes was sincere, that Kurapika had genuinely come here to extract him, to save him from meeting some unknown, grisly end.  He wanted to believe that, and decided that at this point, he had nothing to lose by doing so.

He took Kurapika’s hand.

They were running suddenly, feet pounding over the trail he’d taken to get here as Kurapika tugged him along like a sack of flour until he got his feet under him, briefcase banging against his leg.  “It took three hours to get out here,” Leorio said as Kurapika steadily increased the speed, measured his words around breaths.  “The sun is already setting.  How are we going to get out in twenty minutes?”

“Just run,” Kurapika shot back, something fierce in the expression he tossed over his shoulder—eyebrows together, mouth in a flat line.  “And don’t let go of my hand, Leorio, not for a second.  Don’t you dare!”

“Okay,” he blurted out between breaths, and opted to abandon speaking again in favor of saving his breath, because Kurapika chose that moment to increase their speed.  It wasn't long before his shoulder started to ache from holding his arm out, fingers sweating where they were clasped with Kurapika’s as trees and bushes clawed at their arms and clothing, looming over them even though Leorio was certain nothing had been so close to the path on the way in.

Kurapika started moving even faster, trees flashing by on either side, and Leorio was no longer certain they were even on the path as he struggled to keep up.  His legs moved automatically, lungs screaming for air, and he clutched at Kurapika’s hand for dear life when sweat made his fingers slip just slightly.  There was a rushing sound in his ears, something sharp like beating wings around them—like a flock of birds pacing them on either side, but he couldn’t see a thing.  Just the rush of trees passing, the whip of a twig against his ear, the deepening scarlet light of sunset.

His foot caught on something and he stumbled for a fraction of an instant, and an inhuman shriek rose up somewhere behind him.

“Don’t look back!” Kurapika screamed over his shoulder, voice all but lost in the rush of air whipping past them, and Leorio didn’t know how he managed to not fall flat on his face.  He swore he felt something grab the tails of his jacket, felt his heels catching on something, felt cold clammy breath on the back of his neck.  “Run!”

Leorio obeyed, ran as fast as he could and as fast as his legs would move while goosebumps crawled down his spine, gut twisting with each titter of laughter erupting behind him, with each burble and shriek and every snag on his clothing that he was no longer certain was just tree branches.  The light was failing.  Kurapika’s hand felt like it would snap in his grip if he held on any tighter, and the rush of wind in his ears sounded like static.  There wasn’t enough air.  There wasn’t enough _time_.  Whatever was snapping at his heels felt closer, prickling against his skin, and the air smelled rank and humid like a giant maw was opening behind him, ready to snap closed and swallow them both whole.

Ahead of him Kurapika shouted something incoherent and suddenly his feet left the ground—had they jumped?  Were they caught?  He didn’t know for an instant, black passing across his vision.

Maybe he was dead.

And then his body hit the ground, air forced out of his lungs with the impact, and he was face down in grass, the open sky somewhere above, the last sliver of sunlight glimmering red on the horizon.

Leorio wheezed, trying to get his breath back, pushed himself up and flopped gracelessly onto his back.  He stared at the sky in appreciation for a long moment, then reached up and settled his glasses back into place on his nose.  He’d dropped his briefcase at some point; it was a few feet away, tumbled in the grass of an empty trailer lot near where Kurapika was hacking as he pushed up onto his hands and knees, eventually sitting back on his heels and raking his bangs out of his eyes.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, probably, when Kurapika glanced over towards him and murmured quietly.  “You,” he said, in a vague and almost concerned tone, followed immediately by his brown eyes narrowing, cheeks flushing with anger and voice rising to a furious pitch.  “You—complete IDIOT!”

Leorio sat up, mouth open, prepared to argue back—but Kurapika was blazing with fury and continued on without giving him space to counter.  “What in hell possessed you to go into the forest with TONPA?  Of all people?  What made you think that was a GOOD IDEA?”

“I never thought it was a good idea!”

“Then why did you do it?”

“What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

“Anything!”  Kurapika flung both arms out at his sides, gesturing furiously at nothing.  “NOT THAT!”

Leorio screwed up his face, jaw clenched, distantly noticing that they were inching closer to each other, edging into each other’s personal space, grimacing in each other’s faces.  “He said before that there was a path that led through the forest north to the freeway.”

“And you believed him?”  Kurapika’s hands fisted in his lapels, teeth bared, and Leorio swore he saw something red flash in the brown depths of his eyes.  “Are you kidding me?  Are you _actually_ that gullible?”

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE!”  Leorio roared, loud enough and close enough that Kurapika’s expression faltered, dropping slowly from his face until his mouth drooped down in an uncertain curve.  “I just want to go home!”

The corners of Kurapika’s mouth twitched, and something deeply sad welled up in his eyes for a few seconds, quivering there before sinking back into wherever it had been hiding.  His shoulders and hands relaxed, still caught in Leorio's lapels lapels but without force.  “I’m sorry, Leorio.  I may have just made that more difficult for you.”

Leorio stopped breathing, pulse throbbing in his temples.  “You saved my life.”

“That's a big favor.  A very, very big favor that you’re not able to repay.”

There was a long pause between them, in which Kurapika’s head tilted downwards and Leorio stared at his bangs, close enough that if he leaned forward a bare inch they’d be tickling his nose.  His hands tingled at the proximity but the rest of him was still angry, alarmed, uncertain, and at length he cleared his throat, awkward and maybe a bit contrite.  “So what happens now?”

“I’m not sure.”  Kurapika hadn’t let go of him—his fingers were twitching, tightening and loosening, awkward but unwilling to release him.  “This is very old magic and I’ve never met someone else who invoked it.”

“So you just recklessly came after me without even knowing what the consequences were?”  Leorio was lashing out and he knew it, but Kurapika was the only person in range, and the idea that Kurapika might be saddled with some unknown punishment on his behalf just raked up the coals burning in his chest.  “Now we could _both_ end up trapped here!”

“I was already trapped here.”  Kurapika’s brown eyes were cool, meeting his again in an even stare.  “Are you saying I should have left you to die?”

“You don’t know for sure that I would have died!”

“Tonpa took you out there to drown you in his well and eat you.  That is what would have happened if I hadn’t gone after you.”

Leorio felt his face twisting up, in horror or disgust or disbelief or all three.  “That—”

“I don’t regret my actions.”  Kurapika frowned when Leorio opened his mouth to argue again and stopped any further dissent by reaching up and resting one hand against the curve of Leorio’s jaw.  “Stop.”

Leorio did stop, mouth still open and suddenly dry, hyper-aware of the stubble on his cheek and how it bristled against Kurapika’s palm.

“You’re worth saving,” Kurapika said, and kissed him sweetly.

To Leorio’s credit, he had a lot of complicated and volatile feelings at that precise moment, and a lot of thoughts in his head that had nothing to do with Kurapika and Kurapika’s mouth, so he could be forgiven for the few seconds it took for the fact to work its way through his brain that _Kurapika was kissing him_.  And it was soft and warm and Kurapika hummed a little through his nose when their lips caught around each other, and it was far, far too brief.  As soon as Leorio came to his senses and leaned into it, closing his eyes and breathing in that faint cinnamon smell, just beginning to feel that hot electric sensation that he could only describe as _YES_ expanding through his chest and running down his arms—Kurapika drew back.

Leorio blinked in confusion through the condensation that had formed on the lower edge of his glasses, and Kurapika mirrored the expression as though he was just as confused by his own actions before glancing sideways at the forest they’d just escaped, at the rapidly fading sunset glowing red on the horizon.  His brown eyes widened abruptly and he tugged on Leorio’s jacket, climbing to his feet.  “We have to get back to the lot.  The kids are there.”  He snatched up Leorio’s briefcase off the ground and passed it to him.  “Quickly, before it’s dark.”

Leorio didn’t comment, on the kiss or the sudden rush to leave or Kurapika grabbing hold of his hand again.  His own mouth and hands were still tingling and his heart had taken up residence in his throat, successfully blocking any words that might have formed there instead.  Kurapika didn’t comment either, just dragged him along at a brisk pace down the rutted dirt paths that wound through the RV park. He was eerily quiet in the growing twilight, but from behind Leorio could see the flush creeping down his neck, free hand covering his mouth while the other gripped Leorio’s tight.

The red glow of the sky mirrored by the Airstream seemed ominous, and Leorio felt a twist in his gut that was decidedly removed from the various sensations Kurapika had left him with.  Their feet crunched into the gravel of the caravan lot and only then did Kurapika release his hand, hurrying to the lawn where Gon and Killua were huddled in their nest, heads bent over a comic.  Gon leapt to his feet as soon as they rounded the hitch and came into view.  “Leorio!”

“Gather your things,” Kurapika interjected, pausing only to place his hand atop Gon’s head for an instant in reassurance.  “Be sure you have all of it.  Don’t drop or miss anything.  Hurry!”

Leorio had left his acquired belongings rolled and folded neatly on the picnic table bench, just as he had every day that he anticipated leaving for good, and this was the first time he’d arrived back at Kurapika’s lot and been pleased to see them waiting for him, easily gathered up into his arms.  Kurapika descended on the picnic table himself with a fierce sort of vigor, throwing everything within reach haphazardly into the food box.  Leorio circled the table with arms full, looking for anything that might be missed, and noted the cast iron frying pan and trivet over the fire pit.  “What about these?”

“They’ll be fine.”  Kurapika stuffed the last paper plate into the box and hefted it into his arms.  Gon and Killua had bundled all of their belongings up, standing with backpacks awkwardly hooked on their elbows, hastily wrapped sleeping bags clutched to their chests.  Kurapika balanced the box on one arm to fish the key to the caravan out of his pocket, and yanked the door open wide.  “Inside.”

Gon and Killua stared at him for a pronounced moment, Killua with his mouth open and Gon with wide eyes and increasing alarm.  Leorio stood perpendicular to their standoff, looking from one boy to the other and then peering through the door, unable to get a good glimpse of anything in the dim and rapidly fading light.

“Are you su—” Gon started.

“ _Inside_.”  Kurapika pointed, door propped against his shoulder—as though anyone needed direction—and the two boys scurried up the steps and into the caravan.  Leorio was prepared to say something, possibly the same thing Gon intended to say, but he made the mistake of meeting Kurapika’s eyes. Kurapika _stared_ , and Leorio felt himself hunching down, relinquishing a few inches of height, and slinking inside.

He couldn’t see much from the entry, shunted to the side as he was in the small space so that Kurapika could haul the box inside and close the door behind himself.  So he stood awkwardly, arms loaded, blinking in the dark and then blinking again when the door squeaked closed and Kurapika flicked the lights on.

Leorio had imagined, on a few occasions, what the interior of the caravan might look like—he’d pictured something with retro decor, the kind of thing he saw in pictures of his parents when they were young, maybe a little bohemian because he imagined Kurapika’s late parents being the sort of free spirits who lived in a caravan and raised their child there.

The reality was not totally removed from that vision but at the same time went far beyond his expectations.  The walls were draped with fabric in a myriad of colors, quilted and embroidered with symbols and patterns in shimmering thread that Leorio couldn’t fathom the significance of.  Hammered metal wall hangings in the forms of celestial bodies housed clocks, mirrors, knicknacks, found objects; they mingled together as windchimes that dangled near the open kitchen windows, bracketing a small assortment of potted plants, herbs, ferns, mosses and trailing vines that created a miniature forest on the windowsill.  Strings of pearlescent or crystalline beads and tiny white garden lights lined the upper edges of the walls and a sparkling beaded curtain at the opposite end of the trailer sectioned off the bedroom.

The fixtures and upholstery were as outdated as Leorio had suspected, but, more importantly, practically every horizontal surface within sight was piled with books.  Some were ancient and leather-bound, some new with shiny dust jackets, some worn, dog-eared paperbacks.  Leorio didn’t have time to look more closely at any of them, standing as he was in the vaguely arranged sitting area in the curved front of the caravan, still not sure if it was okay to set his things down on the couch or not—it was largely occupied by books and a few empty mugs but there was a clear spot just large enough for Kurapika to sit in.

Gon and Killua had wedged themselves and their backpacks into the kitchen booth and Kurapika dumped his box onto the table there, shooing them further along the seats.  “Close the windows and pull the curtains down.  Leorio, you too.”  His movements were anxious, fingers fumbling with the blinds over the kitchen sink, and the feeling was catching.  It rumbled through Leorio’s shoulders and down his arms, and he dropped his own armload into the empty space on the couch, reaching over it to push the portal window at the front of the caravan shut and draw down the makeshift curtain propped over it.  The cloth was orange, soft against his fingers, a gold symbol of some kind embroidered in the center and repeated in the trim along the edges.

When he turned back around Kurapika was moving books, trying to clear the surface of the table to make extra space.  Leorio helped as much as he was able, feeling too tall, feeling like he was made of elbows, but Kurapika whispered _thank you_ with just the slightest tremor.  Leorio couldn’t quantify it, until everyone had stopped moving and they were standing in the kitchen, the two boys sitting quietly with their hands folded like they were waiting to be lectured.

Kurapika kept looking around like he needed to do something and had forgotten what.  “I, um,” he started, uncharacteristically backtracked.  “Sorry it’s… kind of a mess.  No one else has been in here since…” he trailed off like he was calculating and thought better of it, throat flashing when he swallowed.  “It doesn’t matter, just don’t go outside until morning, for any reason.  No matter what you hear.  No matter who you hear calling for you, it’s not real.  Do you understand?”

The boys murmured an equally contrite, subdued “Yes” in unison but Leorio’s voice caught in his throat.  Kurapika looked like he might start visibly shaking at any moment under the weight of everything he’d just done, all the as-yet unknown consequences of rescuing Leorio, protecting him and the kids, bringing them into his own home.  Leorio watched him with a cocktail of wildly different emotions rolling through his stomach, lungs still burning from running through the forest, heart still thrumming with fear, lips still tingling, and all he really wanted was to wrap both arms around Kurapika, rest his cheek on his head, hold him until all the tension drained away.

He stepped forward and got as far as resting one hand on Kurapika’s shoulder before uncertainty stopped him, but that seemed to have the desired effect anyway, because Kurapika drew a deep breath and relaxed a bit, raising his own hand to touch Leorio’s wrist.

“Sit down for a while.”  Leorio’s voice felt rough in his own throat.  “I’ll make dinner.”

Kurapika nodded, relief tugging down the corners of his eyes, and although he dropped into the booth to sit beside Gon, the air inside the caravan remained thick, taut, and far, far too quiet.  Leorio tried to distract himself with the everyday sounds of cooking: dragging pans from the cupboards, shuffling through the refrigerator looking for food, stripping the cellophane off of the packet of sausage he bought at the crossroads market.  He’d settled on spaghetti and meatballs, after a cursory look through Kurapika’s pantry, and was taking care to pick ingredients that were store bought, right down to the oil and spices.

Regardless, his ears played tricks on him, and he was honestly too afraid to wonder if it was stress or if what Kurapika said earlier about hearing voices from outside was legitimate.  There had definitely been something in the forest earlier, as fanciful as it seemed now, with artificial lights overhead and water boiling on the rear burner, but he didn’t want to think about what sort of creature could be hovering outside, trying to lure him out with the voice of someone who’d been dead for five years.  Easier to ignore it and throw some of the meatballs into the one small cast-iron pan that hadn’t been taken out to the fire pit, drowning out any real or imagined noises with the sizzle of hot oil.

Easier still to drown it out with the sound of his own voice.  “Well, now that we’re all holed up together, you three get the singular opportunity to experience one of my culinary masterpieces.”

“You’re using canned pasta sauce,” Killua said behind him, unimpressed.

“It’s all in the execution.  You better be icing your ankle over there, I saw you limping when we came in.”

“Whatever.”

“I’ll make an ice pack,” Kurapika said, which was contrary to Leorio’s instructions to sit down, but when he appeared at his elbow a moment later he seemed more like himself, looking over the mess Leorio was making at his tiny stove with a dubious curl to his lips.  “Do you actually know what you’re doing?”

Leorio squared his shoulders with an arrogant scoff.  “I’ll have you know, every one of my friends agree that I make a mean cup of ramen.”

“You don’t say.”

“I’m also a master at buttered toast.  You should ask me to make you breakfast sometime.”

Leorio made the joke fully aware of the implications, but wasn’t prepared for how Kurapika’s gaze darted away with a low, almost shy, “I’ll consider that,” before he turned away to pull an ice tray out of the freezer.  Leorio suddenly felt too warm, realized he was still trussed up in his suit, and left his pans bubbling for a moment to shrug out of his jacket and tug his tie loose and not think about Kurapika considering having sex with him even just to play along with a joke.  Although that was essentially flirting, right?  They were flirting.  They’d been flirting for the last week, actually, and Kurapika had kissed him barely an hour ago and that meant… something.  What did it mean?  Did it mean they could kiss again?  How did he go about asking for another?

The pasta pot gave a particularly energetic boil and slopped water onto the stove, and the crackling burner jerked Leorio out of his thoughts and back to the kitchen, frantically stirring everything.  Kurapika dropped a plastic strainer into the sink at his elbow before returning to the table with Killua’s ice pack and a stack of plates and forks.

“Stop burning our dinner, old man.”

“Don’t worry, I’m only burning your portion.”

Gon laughed out loud and Killua snorted, muttering something that Leorio didn’t catch and graciously chose to let go.  Turning the meatballs was more important, as was straining the pasta, and in a few minutes, once everyone had their plates dished up with a sprinkle of parmesan on top, Killua took the first bite and was forced to concede, “Alright, this isn’t too bad.”

“Listen to those words of praise.  Who wants to augment Killua’s glowing review?”

“Mmf gmmhd,” Gon said around his fork.

“Passable,” Kurapika agreed.

“Guess it’s time to switch careers, abruptly drop out of medical school and apply for a small business loan to open my own five star restaurant, eh?”

“And charge twenty dollars for a plate of toast, I suppose.”

“You mean toasted artisanal bread slices in a butter reduction.”

Kurapika made a noise through his teeth that Leorio suspected was a titter, and he leaned one elbow on the table to peer at his face when Kurapika tried to muffle it with his wrist.  “What was that?  Are you laughing?”

“No, absolutely not.”

“You were.  You think I’m funny.”

“I don’t.”

Leorio grinned, continuing to hover while Kurapika cleared his throat and stoically resumed twirling spaghetti on his fork, spearing one of the meatballs on the tines to keep the noodles bundled.  Killua made a noise of disgust somewhere near his elbow, and Gon continued eating like he hadn’t seen food in weeks.

Eventually, Kurapika met his eyes again, just for the barest instant, and when his eyes darted away Leorio caught sight of the slightest hint of color on his cheeks.

 

 

It was much later in the night, after dinner was cleaned up and the dishes done and the couch and table areas cleared enough for the boys to start climbing all over the furniture looking for the mechanisms that would convert them into beds, when Leorio wedged himself into the tiny bathroom with his toothbrush.  Kurapika had disappeared into his room earlier, and Leorio didn’t hear the door slide open again but he did hear the beads clacking just outside.  Kurapika paused at the door just as Leorio very attractively spat a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink.

Kurapika, of course, had changed into what Leorio assumed were his pajamas, which consisted of the red and blue flannel shirt he’d been wearing the first time Leorio saw him.  He stared for longer than was strictly necessary, toothpaste foam still clinging to his chin, until Kurapika’s eyes narrowed and he folded his arms like doing so would somehow block his entire body from view.  “I am wearing boxers, you know.”

“Of—of course,” Leorio sputtered, grabbing a towel in a last ditch effort to recover and wipe his face off at the same time.  “I most definitely would not have considered otherwise.”

“I would hope so.  Incidentally—” Kurapika paused and reached past him to the medicine cabinet, prying it open just enough to pull out a small tin of shaving cream—the old-fashioned kind with a little brush—and a razor, setting them on the sink neatly.  “I do in fact own a razor, in case you wanted to do something about that sandpaper on your face.”

“ _Sand_ paper—” Leorio’s voice rose to an indignant pitch, but Kurapika had already whisked away to help the kids with the table, leaving him to fume in the tiny bathroom by himself, rubbing at his own chin and muttering.  Then thinking about Kurapika’s hand cupping his cheek, Kurapika’s lips pressing against his, and concluding that he was, in fact, in a position to judge.

It was an odd time of day to shave but Leorio did so anyway out of spite, and by the time he was done and had changed, very awkwardly in the confines of the bathroom, into his gray t-shirt and pajama pants, the lights in the main room of the caravan were switched off, save for a pleasant yellow nightlight plugged in beside the now-converted bed over the dining table.

He had a perfect view, once he’d spread his sleeping bag out on the couch and lay down, of the hallway leading to Kurapika’s bedroom.  The pocket door didn’t appear to be shut, and there was a soft glow in the room beyond.  Leorio thought he saw movement, but without his glasses on it was blurry and indistinct.  He spent the better part of the first hour in bed staring at the ceiling, mentally tracing the lines in the wood panels.  At one point he thought he heard Pokkle’s voice somewhere outside, distant, but Killua sat straight up in bed at the same moment, looking towards the door, and it took a full minute of tugging at his wrist and whispering from Gon before he lay back down.

It was hard to ignore.  Even knowing, logically, that there was no way Pokkle would suddenly show up here in the dead of night, or slightly less logically that if hearing Pietro’s voice earlier hadn’t been real then there was no reason to think that this voice was just because Pokkle was, presumably, still alive—there was still a tug in his gut, a glorious, sickly possibility that he could finally go home.

He wasn’t the only one not sleeping; Gon and Killua continued whispering, curled up facing each other, otherwise still under their blankets.  When Leorio looked down the hallway again he could see a red blur with blond on top that he guessed was Kurapika, mostly blocked by the bead curtain.  The blur moved occasionally, which supported his theory, and at one point it stilled in a way that seemed odd.  Leorio fumbled for his glasses, perched atop the briefcase on the floor next to the couch, and pushed them awkwardly onto his face, leaving a smudge on the right lens.

And sure enough, Kurapika was looking at him, meeting his eyes through the curtain.

Leorio felt a tug at the center of his chest, like there was a string attached there reeling him in, and he wriggled out of the sleeping bag as quietly as possible.  Gon looked up briefly as he passed, but Killua was still, probably sleeping, and when he held a finger up against his lips Gon mirrored the action, and grinned.

He tried to pass through the beads with as little noise as possible, difficult because they were smooth and glossy and he was tempted to run his fingers through them instead of holding them carefully to one side so he could duck through and gently lower them back into place.

The bedroom was small, as expected, with drawers under the full size mattress and built into the walls that weren’t lined with bookshelves.  The biggest wall hanging in the caravan covered the windows, light blue and quilted in silver threads, bits of patterns and shapes winking in the light of pale while strings of lights around the ceiling in the shape of flowers.  Kurapika was sitting on the center of the bed, on a floral patterned quilt, and it was more apparent now that he had boxers on underneath the flannel shirt, soft dark fabric clinging to the top of his thighs.

He motioned towards the door when Leorio entered, tucking his feet under himself while Leorio slid the panel closed, and stayed there staring at Leorio while he shuffled from foot to foot, then cautiously sat down on the bed facing him like he expected it to collapse beneath him.

“So, uhh,” Leorio began, throat working soundlessly for a few awkward seconds, reflecting on how Kurapika’s room kind of smelled like him and how the lights overhead caught in his eyes and the earring dangling against his neck, then plowed ahead with, “S-so if we’re gonna do this maybe I should tell you something—”

At the same time that Kurapika leaned forward slightly and blurted out, “I wanted to apologize for earlier—”

And paused.

“What,” Kurapika said.

“What,” Leorio said.  “Oh.  I.  Yeah, of course.  That’s why.”  He cleared his throat a little too loud, rolling his shoulders and straightening up until he was sitting properly.  “Please, continue.”

Kurapika’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.  “No, what were you going to say?”

“Nothing.”

“Right.”  Kurapika’s head tilted slightly to the side, frown tugging at his mouth.  “If you think you’re going to get laid tonight you are incorrect.”

“No, I gathered that.  I mean that’s fine.  I thought it was a little soon.”

Kurapika let out a breath and looked away, to the side, where the quilted hanging was covering the window, wrinkling his nose like he was disappointed he couldn’t see out of it.  “I did kiss you earlier.”

“You did.”

“I probably should not have.”

“No, no you definitely. Definitely should have.”  Leorio cleared his throat again but it was reflexive, not as loud.  “You should uh.  You should do it again.  Sometime.  Not necessarily right now but.  I mean, unless you wanted to.  Right now.”  He tapped his own cheek with one finger.  “No more sandpaper.”

Kurapika made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, like it wanted to be amused but couldn’t get around the uncertainty in his throat.  “You don’t think it’s a little unfair, to both of us?”

“Well.”  Leorio shrugged, the finger that had tapped his cheek scratching at it instead while he reconsidered all of the things he’d been considering on the matter for the last several days.  “It could be, but… I’m willing to make the effort to make it work if you are.  Long distance things are challenging, but I’m so busy anyway maybe it won’t make as much of a difference as it seems—”

He cut himself off when Kurapika looked progressively more upset rather than hopeful, the corners of his eyes turning down.  “After all this, you still don’t understand.”

Leorio blinked, twice, not sure which of the many complications surrounding them Kurapika was referring to, specifically.  He opened his mouth to attempt something but his voice caught, turned into an exasperated sigh.

Kurapika’s mouth curled in frustration and he shoved both hands into the mattress on either side of himself, eyes sparking, leaning forward on his knees.  “Do you really not get it?  Do you not know where you are?”

“Of course not!”  Leorio reared back and crossed his arms, suddenly defensive and scowling.  “Because apparently no one can just explain it to me!”

“No, but you could figure it out if you actually thought about it for longer than five seconds instead of just assuming whatever comes easiest!”

Leorio’s voice dropped low, expression flattening.  “Don’t talk down to me.”

Kurapika bristled, just for a second, but then retreated back into his own space.  “I apologize.”

“Thank you.”  Leorio waited a few breaths, just to let the tension out of his shoulders and let the air between them clear, but Kurapika continued to stare at the covered window, downcast.  “What is it that you want me to do?”

“Try to remember how you got here.”

“My friends ditched me.  We were out joyriding or something.  I told you that before.”

Kurapika sighed, frustration apparent, but at least he kept the bite out of his voice.  “That’s the conclusion you’ve drawn, yes, but it’s not what you _remember_.”  He looked up finally, something profoundly weary in the stare he cast through the golden fall of his bangs.  “What do you remember, Leorio?”

Leorio swallowed, discomfort twisting in his stomach, casting his mind back through the fog surrounding the morning he woke up in the back of that truck.  “It was the end of the semester.  Some of my friends had graduated, so we went out.”  He closed his eyes in an attempt to dredge up more information, the memory of lights, voices, the smell of vodka.  “We were at a bar, for a while.  Maybe a couple of bars, but we left because…”

He opened his eyes, blinking rapidly, and Kurapika had shifted to sit crosslegged, elbows on his knees, leaning forward.  “Because?”

“We were going to Hanzo’s parents’ place.  They were out of town and they still have a trampoline in their backyard.  We were gonna camp out on it like a goddamn middle school slumber party.  I don’t know whose idea it was but it sounds ridiculous, right?”

“So you were outside.”

“Well, eventually.  I had to go back to my apartment and get my sleeping bag.”

“So you got your sleeping bag,” Kurapika said, like a stage manager feeding him lines, slowly and carefully.  “And then you went back out.”

“Yeah.  I got that, and my briefcase, and I didn’t have money for a taxi, so I thought I’d just walk.  It was… a couple of miles, I think.  Still not the greatest idea in the middle of the night when you’re plastered.”  Now that he was really thinking about it, Leorio wasn’t sure how he’d drawn the conclusion about joyriding, except that it seemed plausible given the circumstances.  “The last thing I remember is walking.”

“Where were you walking?”  Kurapika’s voice was lower, more urgent.  “Was it a city, a road? A neighborhood?  Was there nature around, grass or trees?”

Leorio frowned, feeling everything in his mind go fuzzy and spotty.  “A park?  Yeah, I was cutting through a park.”

“What happened then?  What did it look like?”

The tension in Kurapika’s voice was unsettling, and Leorio leaned back, feeling almost like Kurapika’s intensity was invading his personal space.  “I don’t know, it was a park.  There was a swingset, probably.  Lots of grass and some trees.  A picnic shelter.”

“Did you see anything strange?”

Leorio shrugged.  “It was dark.”

“Try to remember, Leorio.”  Kurapika’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, tugging him back towards him.  “Was there anything strange on the ground or in the trees?  Did you see any lights?  Did you pick a flower?”

“What do flowers have to do with anything?”

“Leorio.”  Kurapika’s voice was firm, and he stared directly into Leorio’s eyes like he was waiting to see some hint of recognition.  “Did you fall?”

There was a second in which Leorio felt his eyebrows drawing together, mouth pursed, and then a moment of sensation flashed in his mind, the smell of grass and the slosh of alcohol in his head, the feel of something against the side of his shoe that gave way.  He made a noise of vague, drunken alarm, peering down to see whatever weird squishy thing he’d half-stepped on, and squinted in the dark, bending down to try and make it out.

Of course, at some point his equilibrium had given in and he tumbled over onto his side, until all that remained in his field of vision was a spread of grass, and a small clump of toadstools.

“Mushrooms?” Leorio said under his breath, almost to himself, and Kurapika let out a relieved breath.

“Yes.”

There was an extended pause in which both of them were so still and silent that he could hear a clock ticking back in the main room.  Then Leorio, baffled and a little alarmed by how solemn and realistic that agreement was, tried to make a derisive noise through his teeth, like this was all a great joke.  “Wait, so you’re saying that I stepped in a _fairy ring?_  Are you serious?”

Kurapika’s voice felt old and heavy and exhausted.  “Leorio—”

“I have yet to see a single fairy flying around here.”

“You’ve met several already.”

“Have I?”  He was being belligerent, he knew he was being belligerent and Kurapika probably didn’t deserve that but it was just so ridiculous.  It had to be a joke, right?  That kind of thing didn’t really happen, right?  “Do I get to meet Tinkerbell too?”

“Look at me, Leorio.”  Kurapika’s voice was whispered but firm, and Leorio didn’t realize he hadn’t been looking at him until that moment, until Kurapika reached up and cupped his palm against Leorio’s cheek to keep him still.  His vision wavered--or no, it was Kurapika that wavered, the edges of him shifting and blurring, crackling with static.  “Don’t be afraid.  I need to you to focus right now.  I need you to remember this and fight through the glamour that’s keeping you from thinking too deeply about what’s happening to you.  _Look at me_.”

Leorio felt a wave of vertigo tug him to the side, and he wanted to drop his head in his hands until it passed, shut his eyes to whatever was going wrong suddenly—the light in the room inverting, casting the flowers into black shadows and Kurapika into a violent purple negative, tiny electric arcs bouncing around his edges and slowly resolving into something too bright, eyes dilating and glowing as red as fire.

There was a scream somewhere in his mind, but it wouldn’t come out of his mouth.  Kurapika’s hand on his cheek kept him frozen.

“You are in a liminal space that exists between reality and the Unseen World.”  Kurapika’s lips were white when he spoke, and his voice echoed musically in Leorio’s ears.  A shiver of light on his shoulders spread out to either side, bright white with shocks of purple dancing over the surface, dripping and swirling black around the edges.  “And I am not even remotely the most terrifying creature you’ve met here so far.”

Reality began fading back in almost immediately, and Kurapika let out a ragged breath like it had taken a great effort to maintain whatever happened for even that long.  The impression of wings springing from his shoulders remained, though, like the image had been burned into Leorio’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Kurapika whispered, and it was only comforting because his voice was normal again and he looked normal again and the light in the room was soft and dim and fading rapidly.  A wash of fatigue made Leorio feel like lead, like he was sinking slowly into a pool of darkness, warm and complacent. “You’re going to wake up and think this was a dream, but it wasn’t, okay?  You have to remember.  Try to remember everything.  Can you hear me?  Leo—”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You weren’t obligated to tell me anything.”_   
>  _“But you’re pissed.” Leorio pointed to the scowl curving Kurapika’s mouth down in response. “Look! You’re completely pissed off!”_   
>  _“But not at you,” Kurapika said, lifting his coffee and taking a slow drink._   
>  _Leorio waited, his own mug still between his hands but fortunately safely on the table, watching Kurapika’s eyes stare to the side without meeting his. “You’re gonna have to elaborate.”_
> 
> In which some discoveries are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly since this was many, many months coming I struggled a lot with this chapter, and it was sort of anticlimactic when I finally realized that all it needed was to be left soft and quiet instead of having any further action or buildup, after so much happened all at once in the last chapter. So here it is; there is sweetness, there is gender talk, there is kissing. Enjoy.
> 
> Thanks @ adulterclavis, as always, for the beta.

> _way up north i took my day_   
>  _all in all was a pretty nice day_   
>  _and i put the hood right back where_   
>  _you could taste heaven perfectly_   
>  _feel out the summer breeze_   
>  _didn't know when we'd be back_   
>  _and i, i don't, didn't think_   
>  _we'd end up like_
> 
> _like this_

* * *

“Leorio!”

Gon’s voice cracked through his consciousness with the force of a thunderclap and jerked him halfway upright just as effectively.  He groaned, squinting in the dim light filtering through the kitchen blinds, propped up on one elbow and rubbing his face.  “What?”

“You were mumbling a lot in your sleep.”

“What,” Leorio repeated for lack of anything better to say, peering around and not sure why he didn’t expect to find himself on the couch at the front of the caravan.  Gon was standing awkwardly on one leg beside him, toes scratching the back of his calf, arms folded behind his back.  Somewhere past him Killua was a blur sitting up in the middle of their blanket nest, on the bed the table folded down into.  “Was I?”  He scratched a hand through his hair, thoughts bouncing around in a way that felt familiar—but only on mornings after he’d been out drinking.  The hallway was a dim blur behind Gon, but even without his glasses Leorio could tell that the pocket door to Kurapika’s room was closed.

Gon tilted his head.  “Did you have a bad dream?”

The word _dream_ seemed important for some reason, but Leorio couldn’t figure out why—he just kept looking back and forth from the closed door to the length of his own body, stuffed into the sleeping bag, feet hanging off the edge of the couch, thoughts fleeting and obscure in the thick fog filling his head.  “Didn’t I…”  He swore he remembered something, meeting Kurapika’s eyes through the beaded curtain, grabbing his glasses off his briefcase—but they were still where he’d left them when he looked down.  “Did I get up last night and...?” he prompted, gesturing towards Kurapika’s room and looking back up at Gon, certain he recalled exchanging a glance with him, but Gon just shrugged.

He couldn’t have.  His chest wasn’t bound—he’d taken off the binder in the bathroom the night before once he was sure everyone was in bed, and managed to sneak past the boys without notice.  Honestly, he had no idea how he was keeping up appearances at this point and wondered if the other three weren’t completely aware and had just collectively decided not to say anything.

But there was no way he would have gotten up and gone back to Kurapika’s room like that, not with the potential for kissing or cuddling (or possibly more) involved.  There was no way someone could have carried him back out here—not to assume that Kurapika lacked anything in strength but Leorio was a large person and that hallway was really narrow.  “Huh,” he said at length, dropping back onto his pillow to rub the sleep out of his eyes.  “Yeah, I guess I did have a dream.  I don’t think it was bad, though.”  If he’d dreamed about sneaking back into Kurapika’s bedroom in the middle of the night, he could imagine how things went from there.  It was a shame he didn’t remember more than a few sounds, vague images, the sensation of Kurapika’s hand on the side of his face.

Gon seemed satisfied, in any case, and hopped away from him to help Killua fold up their blankets and convert the bed back into a table.  Leorio pushed his glasses onto his nose, then pulled them off and cleaned a smudge off the right lens with a corner of his blanket.  He waited to get up until the two boys were finished and shouldering the front door open, and at that point he remembered something important.

“Is it Saturday?” he asked aloud, and Killua was the one who blinked at him.

“Probably.”

“What do you mean _probably?_   Never mind, go outside and run around like the hellion you are.”  Leorio waved him off and waited for the screen door to bang shut before climbing out of his sleeping bag, gathering his excess clothes and binder and briefcase, and making a quick escape to the tiny bathroom.  It was still just as small as the day before despite all hope to the contrary, but he managed to wedge himself inside and take care of business and also wedge himself back into the binder.  There wasn’t much choice in what to wear: the gray shirt and pajama pants or button-down and slacks.  Office casual or literal sleepwear.  He sort of missed jeans, and wondered halfheartedly if there was anything passable in the free bins by the laundry room while he pulled the packet of sharps and testosterone out of his briefcase, setting it flat on the sink as a makeshift counter to unroll the bundle.

He’d been doing this for so long it was hardly worth thinking about anymore, so his mind was elsewhere and his pants were off and it somehow didn’t occur to him that eventually Kurapika was going to wake up in his own caravan that he was used to living in alone and make a beeline for the toilet.

And that was precisely what happened, and that was how Kurapika managed to open the bathroom door at that most perfect moment, when there was a syringe safety cap in his mouth and a needle deep in the muscle of his thigh and Leorio couldn’t even find it in himself to be shocked or afraid.  It was like he’d subconsciously orchestrated the whole thing.

So Leorio stayed where he was, in nothing but his gray t-shirt and boxers with one foot up on the edge of the toilet, staring at Kurapika and how his eyes darted around and his mouth opened and closed like he wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed or not.  At length, once Leorio couldn’t depress the syringe with his thumb anymore, he said, as casually as possible, “Morning.”

Kurapika didn’t respond with anything other than a flurry of confused blinks, and then his eyes lit on the vials sitting on top of the briefcase.  Leorio probably could have stopped all of this, at that moment, if he wanted to.  It wasn’t Kurapika’s place to ask; there were plenty of perfectly valid medications he could be injecting and none of them were anyone else’s business.  But Leorio felt oddly lightheaded and a little reckless, so he picked up the vial and handed it to Kurapika, and quietly accepted the consequences.

He recapped the sharp and slipped it into a compartment of the cloth bundle that held another used needle, separate from the good ones, and slid the syringe back into its own pocket.  Kurapika’s eyebrows quirked and drew together, reading the vial’s label, and Leorio could practically hear all the puzzle pieces clicking into place in his brain.  When Kurapika handed it back Leorio couldn’t make out his expression from his own unfortunately high, cramped angle.  He just watched Kurapika’s blond head bob, and then watched him turn abruptly and leave the room.

Leorio stayed where he was for longer than was strictly necessary, and that panic he hadn’t felt a moment ago finally hit him.  Kurapika was mad, maybe even… he didn’t want to think about what else.  He’d woken up blissed out from a dream about sneaking into Kurapika’s room at night and secretly hoping that something similar might happen while he was awake, that maybe he’d get to curl up with the blond and actually cuddle properly and maybe try that kissing business again.

But maybe he’d just blown it.  Maybe he should have said something sooner or been less covert, dropped hints.  Maybe he should have told Kurapika outright back when he made that ill-advised joke.

Eventually, though, he had to put his pants on and slink out of the bathroom, stomach tying itself in knots.  Kurapika was busy in front of the stove, the sleeves of his flannel shirt turned up, scrambling eggs in a pan while the coffee pot burbled to itself on the counter and the toaster ticked away.  He glanced up briefly when Leorio appeared and muttered, “Sit down,” in a way that was short but not unkind.

Leorio did, shoving his briefcase onto the booth seat beside him and staring balefully at the table, occasionally at Kurapika’s back while he plated up the eggs and toaster waffles and some of the remaining raspberries from yesterday’s breakfast, which felt like a lifetime ago in a different world.  His mind ran over all the potentially horrible things Kurapika might have to say to him no matter how much he tried to reason with it, and didn’t stop until after Kurapika came back in from handing the plates off to Gon just beyond the screen door.  No food yet for him and Kurapika, just a cup of coffee plunked on the table under his nose.

Kurapika sat across from him and rather than drinking or doctoring his coffee in any way Leorio just peered at him over the mug, trying to determine if those wrinkles between his eyebrows and the flat line of his mouth meant he was pissed off.  Leorio didn’t move otherwise, just held the mug in front of his face like a shield, and a few minutes ticked by in silence.  Kurapika stirred a few sugar cubes into his coffee but didn’t speak.

Eventually Leorio couldn’t stand the tension anymore and lowered the mug back to the table with a thump and an aggravated sigh.  “Look, I’m sorry.”

Kurapika blinked, and the tightness in his expression melted away, which was not _at all_ what Leorio expected to happen.  “What?  Oh my god.  No, I’m not mad at you.  You don’t have to apologize, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But I should have told you, before now.”

“You weren’t obligated to tell me anything.”

“But you’re pissed.”  Leorio pointed to the scowl curving Kurapika’s mouth down in response.  “Look!  You’re completely pissed off!”

“But not at _you_ ,” Kurapika said, lifting his coffee and taking a slow drink.

Leorio waited, his own mug still between his hands but fortunately safely on the table, watching Kurapika’s eyes stare to the side without meeting his.  “You’re gonna have to elaborate.”

Kurapika scratched at his own jaw, self-consciously, and Leorio was barely able to comprehend the possibility that he was actually embarrassed.  “I’m ashamed of myself.  I was jealous of you from the beginning, because you were… because you _are_ tall and loud and—and you have facial hair and muscles that fill out your shirt sleeves and a deep voice and,” he paused, mouth twisting up at the corners like he was about to admit to something particularly distasteful.  “And you’re _handsome_ , I guess.  You’re masculine in every way that I’m not and I resented you for it.  A lot.  And it never once occurred to me that maybe that masculinity was hard-won.”

Leorio didn’t so much relax as feel himself dropping against the backrest hard enough to draw a huff of air from his lungs.  Kurapika folded his arms on the table in front of him, shrinking down until his shoulders hunched around his ears.

“I’m angry at myself for making naive assumptions and not giving you more credit.  And because that probably really hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

There was a clock somewhere in the room ticking, and Leorio counted it about ten times before letting out a, “Huh.”  It was perhaps another ten ticks before he followed that with, “I can’t say that’s anything remotely like what I expected to hear.”

Kurapika took a short breath, like he was about to give a snarky response, but apparently he thought better of it and started drinking his coffee instead.

“You know,” Leorio said at length, because there was still an odd tension circling around between the two of them and he wanted to relieve it, “if you were really that resentful of me it didn’t show.  I mean, you’ve always treated me as exactly who I am. You’d be surprised how often that doesn’t happen, still.  But the fact that you didn’t question it—that kind of makes me happy.”

Kurapika looked up just briefly, eyes meeting Leorio’s for an instant, glimmering brown and contrite, and when they flickered downwards again there was the slightest smile on his mouth, almost hidden behind his arms.  “I’m also sorry for barging in on you in the bathroom.  I wasn’t thinking and it won’t happen again.”

Leorio leaned his chin on one hand, unconsciously mirroring Kurapika’s tiny smile.  “Apology accepted.”

He could hear the clock ticking again, but it was comforting this time, like a heartbeat.  Kurapika straightened after another minute or two, dragging his mug back over in front of him, and when he met Leorio’s eyes again his own darted away immediately, embarrassed, and Leorio couldn’t figure out why until he realized he was smiling.  Of course he was smiling; acceptance felt good and Kurapika openly admitting to feeling anything other than cool indifference felt good and there was a swirl of giddy anticipation in his gut that wanted to keep talking and spill everything all at once like a teenager at a slumber party.

_I like you, I like you a lot, please go out with me._

Kurapika was the next to speak, though.  “Is there anything I can do, to make things easier?  Since we’re in kind of close quarters.  Like… do you want to talk to Gon and Killua?”

Leorio considered that over a long sip of coffee, realizing halfway through that he never had put any sugar in it.  “Maybe.  It would be nice to not have to worry about being in the binder constantly, or when and how I’m going to change.”

“You’re welcome to use my room, if you need more space.  That bathroom’s tiny for me and I’m not a ridiculous giant like you.”  Kurapika sipped at his coffee and shrugged, looking progressively more comfortable.  “It’s up to you.  I don’t think those two will care, either way.”

“That’s true,” Leorio said lightly, thinking back to his impromptu gender lesson over breakfast, and dropped two sugar cubes into his coffee.  While he stirred Kurapika drew a breath and held it, watching Leorio’s fingers.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How did you know?”

There was a pause and a weight to Kurapika’s voice that suggested this wasn’t just curiosity and Leorio considered his response carefully, considered how sensitive Kurapika was about his own presentation, considered the possibility that Kurapika had been stuck here for years with no one to talk to about these things and Leorio might finally be in a position to help him.  It might not repay his debt, but that hardly mattered.

“For me it happened when puberty hit.  There are people who know right away, you know, from when they’re little kids, but I guess I never thought about it.  I just did what I wanted, looked and dressed how I wanted, and no one bothered to stop me—well, that’s not really true, I guess.  There were people who tried to stop me, but I just sort of automatically dismissed whatever sanctimonious crap they had to say about how girls should behave as something that didn’t apply to me.  It just didn’t occur to me why I thought so.  Then I hit adolescence and my body started doing things I didn’t want, and I realized I was going to be stuck that way for the rest of my life.”

Kurapika leaned over the table on his elbows.  “That sounds terrible.”

“It was.  I was… really depressed, for a while.  I had a good friend, though, who helped me figure things out and supported me when I needed it.  My parents…” Leorio huffed, trailing off into a sip of coffee.  “I thought they might be okay with me.  Hell, I thought they might even know and were expecting me to come out to them at some point, but that’s not how it went down.  They said I was just angry and confused because I was a teenager, and once I grew up I’d be fine.”

“What did you do?”

“I told them I’d start transitioning when I turned 18, with or without their permission.  They weren’t happy.  On the plus side they didn’t kick me out, and when I left for college they gave me all the money they’d set aside to help pay for it, but I haven’t spoken to either of them since I left.”

Kurapika didn’t respond right away, eyes lowered respectfully, like a silent agreement about how awful that was.  “What about your friend?”

Leorio lowered his mug a little quicker than necessary and it clanged against the table.  “Oh.  Uh, he died, senior year of high school.  He had lymphoma.”

“Oh shit,” Kurapika’s hand shot out automatically, curling gently around Leorio’s.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”  Leorio looked down at where their hands connected, how Kurapika’s thumb was pressed against his first knuckle, and after a few seconds he chuckled.  “I’ve never heard you swear before.”

“I’m only human.”

Kurapika said it in a way that nagged at something in the back of Leorio’s mind, but he forgot whatever it was looking at the tiny smile on Kurapika’s lips, focused instead on turning his hand so that his and Kurapika’s fingertips were pressed against each other’s palms.  “What about you?  What’s your story?  I know you didn’t ask me that just for funsies.”

“Please don’t say words like ‘funsies’ with that adoring expression on your face.”

“Adoring expression?  What?”

“Shut up.”  Kurapika’s mouth pulled down into something dangerously approaching a pout and Leorio had to stifle a grin, lean his chin back on his hand and graciously wait for him to continue.  And he did, eventually, once he was sure Leorio was done teasing.  “I started out pretty much the same as you; my parents were open-minded and willing to let me express myself however I wanted.  I suppose the difference is that I’ve always been satisfied with myself and my body; that was never a problem.  The problem was…”

Leorio ventured a guess.  “Everyone else?”

Kurapika paused for a minute, like he was working out how to explain whatever was inside his head, fingers tapping at his mug.  “We moved around a lot, obviously.  My family, with our clan—there were about thirty caravans, just like this one.  My parents taught me that it was our job to understand people, to listen to them and learn about them, so wherever we went, if we were going to stay for a few months or more then any of the kids in the clan who were old enough would enroll at the local public school.  It was exciting, at first, because I loved school and I took what my parents told me very seriously.  When we got older things started to change.  There were always kids who bullied us, just because we were outsiders and I’m sure their parents talked badly about us, but once we were in middle school there were bullies who would focus specifically on me, and they got pretty vicious.”

Leorio curled his fingers until they were tangled with Kurapika’s.  “Get shoved into girls’ bathrooms a lot?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.  At least the girls were sympathetic, most of the time.  There was one school, the one I was at the longest, where some of them wanted to petition administration to let me use the girls’ bathroom regularly, but I told them to stop.  I appreciated the sentiment, just…”  Kurapika paused for another long moment, fingers tugging at Leorio’s.  “I’ve never talked about this to anyone, but I was really confused.  I’d never connected all that much with the idea of being male, and until then it didn’t seem to matter.  So there was a period where I thought, what if I am really a girl?  But that didn’t feel right either.  And I didn’t know what else to do, so I thought I had to just insist on my masculinity, as much and as loudly as I could, so I couldn’t tolerate anything that might be seen as an admission otherwise.  And what upsets me now is that I had no idea there might be any other option until the other day when you were talking to Gon.”

Warm affection flooded through Leorio’s chest and tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he must have been wearing that ‘adoring look’ or whatever that Kurapika had complained about earlier, because Kurapika’s eyes narrowed and his voice flattened.  “Why are you smiling?”

“Because I’m starting to understand you, and it’s nice.”

Kurapika made a noise that tried to be dismissive but wasn’t really, and the bit of color on his cheeks countered it, anyway.  “Fair enough.”

“So, now that you know there are other options, what do you think?”

“I don’t know.  I mean, I’m not even sure what to do, or if it’s even worthwhile to do anything.”  Kurapika shrugged, just slightly, and the movement looked so vulnerable that Leorio felt a twist in his stomach and the abrupt desire to do or say anything that might make Kurapika smile or feel confident again.  A bare second later, though, Kurapika’s eyes met Leorio’s and he straightened in his seat.  “When you asked me what pronouns I wanted you to use, the other day… what were you doing before that?”

“Well… just defaulting to gender-neutral terms, ‘they’ pronouns and stuff.  I can go back to that, if you want.  See how you feel about it.”

Kurapika fell silent for a few long minutes, sipping coffee, and Leorio did the same, waiting patiently for a response, keeping hold of Kurapika’s hand and draining his own mug.  He considered getting a refill, but didn’t want to break contact while Kurapika was still considering the surface of the table with a pensive stare.

“I think I’d like that.”  Kurapika’s voice was quiet but certain, maybe a little pleased.

Leorio grinned, as broad and bright as he could stand, until Kurapika had to look away and mutter, “Stop being such a dork,” like they were actually annoyed.

“Alright, alright,” he relented, toning it down to a more casual smile.  “Now can I ask you something?”

Kurapika stared at him for several seconds as if daring him to say something dumb.  “I suppose.”

“Do you still think I’m handsome?”

“No.”

Leorio made a pained noise and grasped at the front of his shirt, over his heart.  “So cruel.”

Kurapika grabbed both of the mugs and slid out of the booth, setting them on the counter by the coffee pot.  “I understand what you’re asking,” they said, voice carefully neutral, and Leorio didn’t quite expect it when Kurapika came back immediately and sat on the edge of the table right in front of him.  “And I don’t want you to misinterpret anything, so I’ll make myself clear.”

It wasn’t like before, on that patch of grass just outside the forest; Leorio had a few seconds to recognize what was happening, to appreciate the hands that settled on his shoulders, the damp breath against his cheek, the way Kurapika’s eyes slid closed just before their lips met.

Leorio counted three times that their mouths caught around each other and dragged slowly apart, breath coming faster and heavier in the space between them each time, and then Kurapika’s tongue brushed against his lower lip and Leorio made an incredibly embarrassing noise, fingers climbing the cord of muscle along Kurapika’s neck, bumping against their earring.  Time slowed to a close, hot crawl, Kurapika’s hands shifting from his shoulders, one moving slowly down the length of his spine and the other trailing fingers up the back of his neck, carding into his hair.  Leorio’s mind kept stuttering over itself, caught in a loop of _wow we’re kissing_ and _this means they like me right???_ as though he was fourteen again and still used the word “like” in all seriousness.  And his hands kept moving and relocating like he wasn’t sure where to touch, because he wanted to touch all of Kurapika at once, and one hand finally settled palm flat on what turned out to be Kurapika’s bare thigh, fingers tracing over soft, warm skin and Kurapika made a low noise in response that sent a flush of heat through all of his limbs.

After that, breathing through his nose stopped being sufficient and Leorio broke the kiss with a heavy exhale, still close enough to feel Kurapika do the same, to see nothing but their eyes when he opened his.  “I think you made your point.”

“Oh?” Kurapika’s voice was low and husky, brown eyes practically sparkling in their own light.  “I guess I can stop then.”

“No, wait.  I still don’t understand.  It’s early, I’ve only had one cup of coffee, so I might need you to explain a few times.”

Kurapika’s laugh was musical; it raised goosebumps on Leorio’s skin, made his heart speed, and the second kiss wasn’t as deep but instead was slow and achingly sweet.  The hand that wasn’t on Kurapika’s thigh moved up along the curve of their back, fingers curling in the flannel fabric of their shirt, and he felt himself disintegrating a little more each time Kurapika’s lips moved against his.

_This is what it’s like_ , he thought.  _This is what it’s like—_

Leorio’s train of thought was rudely interrupted by a gagging noise from somewhere outside the warm, close sphere that consisted only of himself and Kurapika.  He tried to blink the haze from in front of his eyes a few times before realizing it was fog clinging to his glasses, noting that one of Kurapika’s hands was no longer touching him and the other had moved to a more neutral position on his shoulder, their upper body twisted enough to look back towards the caravan door.  Gon was looking away demurely, one hand on the back of his head and the other clutching a small stack of breakfast dishes; Killua had both hands wrapped around his own neck, tongue out, eyes crossed.

“Nobody asked you,” Leorio grumbled.

Kurapika was far more gracious, sliding off the table and back onto their feet.  “Are you done with breakfast already?”

Gon was the one who answered, while Killua continued to mime himself slowly strangling to death, sliding down the doorframe into a heap on the steps.  “Yeah.  We’re gonna go ride around the park for a while.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  Kurapika took the dishes from Gon, and their face was twisted with concern when they turned back towards Leorio to set them in the sink.  “For today you two should stay in the lot.”

Gon whined his disappointment and Killua gave a particularly loud death rattle from somewhere on the floor but Kurapika turned back to the two boys, hands on their hips, with an authoritative tone.

“No arguments.”

There was some grumbling, but Gon obediently grabbed the two half-open backpacks stacked on top of their rolled sleeping bags and they shuffled back out onto the lawn to entertain themselves for the rest of the day.  It looked sunny and pleasant, at least, with a cool breeze blowing in through the screen, so Leorio didn’t concern himself with them any further.

Instead he stared at Kurapika’s back until they turned around to give Leorio his due attention, smile twitching up on their lips.  “Are you pouting?”

“I’m not,” Leorio grumbled.  He totally wasn’t; he just wanted Kurapika back in his arms, hands back on his body, mouth pressing against his.

Kurapika looked like they might indulge him, wandering back to his side, but only threaded their fingers back through his hair once, eyes warm with a smile.  “I’ll make us some breakfast now.”

_I’m a lucky man_ , he thought, pressing a kiss to the center of Kurapika’s palm before they turned away to the fridge, retrieving a rapidly depleting carton of eggs and a few precious strips of bacon.

“Toaster waffles or just toast?”

“Toasted artisanal bread slices in a butter reduction,” Leorio said, and Kurapika snorted.

“You’re getting cheap wonder bread with margarine and you’ll like it.”

The few minutes of banter and watching Kurapika’s back without touching it was apparently too much for him to bear, so Leorio got up to take residence in the space behind Kurapika, preparing to make a nuisance of himself.  He paused, though, with both hands hovering over Kurapika’s shoulders, blinking at what felt like a lingering burned-in impression of light on his eyes, tracing two curves up from the center of Kurapika’s back.  Like wings.  For an instant, he was sure he could feel something solid under his palms.

Then he blinked again and the impression was gone, reality snapped back into place, still and brilliantly aware for an instant like he’d just stepped out of a movie theater into bright sunlight.  A dollop of butter crackled in a heated frying pan and the smell of cooking fat penetrated his nose like his senses hadn’t been working up until that precise moment.

His hands settled on Kurapika’s shoulders and he leaned his chin on top of their head.  “As I recall though, I was supposed to be the one making you breakfast.”

Kurapika hummed, tilting the pan to slide the melting butter around in contemplation.  “Well, we haven’t slept together yet, so you’re bound to have other chances.”

“Oh,” Leorio replied, intelligently, the innuendo a little too much for his brain to process for a few speechless seconds before it offered that yes, in fact, that might have been an invitation, and he might be welcome to get a little closer and maybe twist himself up enough to get his mouth against Kurapika’s neck and maybe find out what their skin tasted like.

He closed his eyes, tilting his head to press his lips against Kurapika’s hair, and was about to move lower when Kurapika yelped and flinched under his hands, and a pan clattered heavy on the stovetop.

Leorio didn’t think for at least five minutes, responding only to the sound of pain, turning Kurapika around by the shoulders and holding out his hands for the one Kurapika was cradling against their chest, brown eyes wide with a fear that Leorio responded to reflexively, just as trained.  “It’s okay.  Let me see.”

Kurapika’s hand quivered against his, and there was an angry red weal across their palm, but it wasn’t gray or blistering, so Leorio let out a breath.  “Good, it’s minor.  Did you turn on the wrong burner?”

“I guess.  There’s aloe on the windowsill.”  Kurapika’s voice was low and tight, staring dispassionately down at the injury, but he moved with Leorio when he stepped back to reach over and break off a stalk, held still while he squeezed the fluid inside onto the burn.

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“Yeah.”  Kurapika glanced back at the stove for a second, mouth turning down in a dangerously quivering frown.  “I’ll go find some ibuprofen.”  Their hand withdrew, once again clutched against their chest, not meeting Leorio’s eyes.  Kurapika turned quickly and hurried back through the beaded curtain into the small bedroom beyond.  The beads were still swinging, clattering musically against each other, when the pocket door slid shut.

Leorio blinked, not sure what he’d done wrong or if the burn really did hurt that badly, that Kurapika felt compelled to shut themself away.  He set the broken aloe stalk in a safe spot on the counter, for a second application later, and turned to the stove.

He hummed in confusion, checking all the knobs.  Except for the pan heating the butter, they were all switched off.  The frying pan Kurapika had dropped, now tilted precariously on the stovetop, was the only cast-iron pan left in the house, the smaller one he’d used to fry the meatballs last night.  Leorio held his palm over it but didn’t feel any heat—cautiously touched the handle, but it was cold.

“Huh,” Leorio vocalized, feeling confusion wrinkle his nose and nudge at his glasses.  He picked up the pan and moved it to the front burner, likely what Kurapika had intended to do, and turned it on to preheat for the bacon.  Kurapika’s door was still closed, and remained so until long after Leorio had finished cooking their aborted breakfast and made himself a second cup of coffee, waiting patiently at the booth table while Kurapika’s plate went cold.

Eventually he got up and slipped through the beaded curtain, a moment of deja vu hitting him the instant his fingers ran over the clattering strands, and tapped gently on the wood panel door.  “Are you okay?”

Kurapika’s voice was muffled just a bit, but rough in a way Leorio couldn’t quite define.  “Yeah.  Sorry, I’m still not feeling very well.  I’m going to take a nap.”

Leorio’s hand hovered over the paneling, then down near the little metallic indent of a handle nested near the doorframe, toying with the idea of trying it.  Not sure if he’d be more upset if he found it locked or if he opened it and Kurapika slammed it shut again.  Not sure which would just make him lose points with his… well, they weren’t necessarily dating so uh…

He lowered his arm, stepping back a bit.  “Okay.  I’ll put your breakfast in the fridge for later.”

“Thank you.”  Kurapika’s voice sounded genuinely relieved and grateful, so for now Leorio figured that would have to be enough.


End file.
